Bank of America (BAC) really wants to hang onto Countrywide’s (CFC) No. 2 executive. BofA will pay Countrywide president David Sambol $28 million in cash and stock if he sticks around for three years as the combined company’s head of mortgage operations, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Thursday. Bank of America said in January when it agreed to buy Countrywide for $4 billion in stock that it aimed to position itself for a leading role in the U.S. mortgage industry when the housing downturn bottoms out.

Reuters notes that Sambol’s sweet payday compares favorably with the one taken last year by Ken Lewis, Bank of America’s CEO, who made a paltry $20 million in 2007. That’s a turnabout from Sambol’s situation at Countrywide, where he was working for Angelo Mozilo, whose massive stock-sale gains over recent years recently got him hauled before a congressional panel investigating CEO pay. In his testimony earlier this month, Mozilo called reports of his pay package “grossly exaggerated.” Some would say the same of the pay itself.

The white flag is flying higher than ever at Bear Stearns (BSC). Chairman Jimmy Cayne sold his entire stake in the brokerage firm Tuesday, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Thursday afternoon. The filing says Cayne sold 5.6 million shares at $10.84 apiece for a take of $60.8 million. Update: Cayne’s wife sold her 45,669 shares as well, the filing says.

Cayne was CEO of the firm until he was replaced in January following revelations that he was off playing bridge during an August liquidity crisis that nearly ran the firm out of business. Bear recovered from that episode, only to agree earlier this month to be sold to JPMorgan Chase (JPM) for a token sum to avoid a bankruptcy filing.

Even after the price on that deal was renegotiated Monday to $10 a share from $2, some investors held out hope that Cayne and investor Joe Lewis might lead a rebellion that would result in a still higher price. Thursday’s news that Cayne has dumped his stock, which led to a 4% drop in Bear stock in after-hours trading, seems to confirm that scenario was a pipe dream.

It still pays to fail. MBIA (MBI) chief Gary Dunton was forced out of the bond insurer last month as the company sought to make nice with regulators led by New York’s top insurance watchdog, Eric Dinallo. But Dunton, who stepped aside for the return of Jay Brown, won’t leave empty-handed. MBIA said Tuesday in a preliminary proxy filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Dunton got a $1 million bonus for 2007 - a year in which MBIA shares lost 73% of their value - plus $960,000 for his efforts in raising $2.6 billion in new capital earlier this year. And that’s not all. Dunton also gets $2.55 million in cash settlement of a long-term incentive grant that won’t be paid out, and $241,000 in pro-rated bonuses for 2008 - even though MBIA shares have fallen this year. All told, Dunton is departing with $5.2 million, MBIA says - and this for doing his job in a way that led MBIA’s board to conclude that Brown is “singularly qualified to lead the company during what it believes to be the most serious challenge in its 34-year history.” Bravo.

The hits keep coming at Blackstone (BX). The private equity firm said in its annual report this week that CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman took home $350 million in cash distributions last year. Schwarzman’s big paycheck is lower than his 2006 take of $398 million, the company said in a 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Fortunately, the cash distribution - reflecting Schwarzman’s stake in the firm’s profits and its funds’ carried interest and incentive fees  - wasn’t all he got. The exec also received $729 million worth of Blackstone partnership units, as well as other compensation valued at $179,482. News of Schwarzman’s hefty take comes just days after Blackstone, whose shares have dropped 57% from their peak last summer after the firm’s IPO, posted a $170 million fourth-quarter loss.

On a happier note, Schwarzman agreed earlier this week to donate $100 million to the New York Public Library, which will put his name on the side of its landmark Fifth Avenue building. “We hope to incise the name of the building in stone in a subtle, discreet way on either side of the main entrance about three feet off the ground,” the president of the library’s board of trustees told The New York Times Tuesday. “It’s in keeping with the dignity of the building.”

Delta (DAL) chief Richard Anderson is serious about getting his airline together with his former employer, Northwest Airlines (NWA). Anderson told the board of Atlanta-based Delta that he’ll forgo his right to as much as $15 million in pay that he’d be contractually due in the years after a merger, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Anderson’s move shows he plans to stay with Delta and could help the companies sell the deal to their unionized workers by showing executives aren’t unfairly benefiting at the expense of the rank and file. Union leaders at Delta and Northwest are reportedly studying the possible merger, Bloomberg reported earlier this week. Despite all the complications, it seems likely that some deals will take shape soon. Northwest chief Doug Steenland said last week that the industry is headed for consolidation as airlines seek to combat high fuel prices and reduce overcapacity. Doing nothing, he warned, “could be our worst alternative.”

The week ends on yet another a low note for Novastar (NFI). The subprime mortgage company fired 85 percent of its remaining staff and had its securities delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. The setbacks are hardly a shock, given that Novastar spent 2007 slashing jobs as its business - making high-cost loans to people with poor credit histories - collapsed under the weight of rising defaults. At Friday’s closing price of $2.92 a share, Novastar has lost 95 percent of its value since a year ago. The stock has also lost almost two-thirds of its value since the day in mid-October when the NYSE began delisting procedures. Novastar has turned into such a debacle that even the CEO got thrown out last month, though the company’s press release politely said he was leaving. Now almost everyone else who was at Novastar is out on the streets, too - though chances are good that most people didn’t get a nice severance payment the way ex-chief Scott Hartman did.

The Countrywide (CFC) disconnect continues. Shares of the mortgage lender sank Friday morning on news that Bank of America (BAC) plans to pay just over $7 a share to take over Countrywide - nearly a dollar below the $7.75 the stock closed at following Thursday’s rip-roaring rally. But as always, deeply tanned chief Angelo Mozilo will do just fine for himself, thank you. Mozilo stands to walk off with a going-away gift of $115 million, including company jet time and country club fees, the Los Angeles Times reports. The number, which is based on a reading of Countrywide’s regulatory filings, reflects the company’s obligation to pay him triple his salary and bonus, plus pensions and stock grants. It’s not like Mozilo needs or even deserves the money: he cashed in more than $100 million worth of stock over the past year even as Countrywide shares lost more than three-quarters of their value. Unsurprisingly, BofA chief Ken Lewis told investors Friday that he doesn’t expect Mozilo to stick around for long: “I would want him to stay until the deal gets done,” Lewis said on a conference call, Reuters reports, “and then probably I would guess that he would then want to go have some fun.” At shareholder expense, of course.