By Jonathan Stempel

BANGALORE (Reuters) - Countrywide Financial Corp shareholders vote on Wednesday to approve the largest U.S. mortgage lender's purchase by Bank of America Corp, marking the demise of the company perhaps most closely associated with the nation's housing bubble and subsequent collapse.

The vote will be held at Countrywide CFC.N headquarters in Calabasas, California. A Countrywide spokesman said the meeting is closed to the press and is not being webcast.

While the outcome is not in doubt, the proceedings lend an aura of secrecy to the final days of Countrywide, which in 2007 made one in six U.S. mortgage loans -- many of which would not get made today.

They also provide a contrast to last year, when Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo would spend three hours on earnings conference calls, proclaiming the company he co-founded in 1969 had a "much better chance of success" than any rival to survive the shakeout in housing and credit markets.

It won't.

"Countrywide joined the crowd in participating in untested lending standards," said Gary Gordon, an analyst at Portales Partners in New York. "It was also Countrywide's mistake to retain substantial amounts of credit risk. It should have stayed a mortgage banker rather than become a mortgage investor."

The merger may close by July 1. Mozilo, the son of a Bronx, New York butcher, faces a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission probe into his sales of Countrywide stock before it cratered. He now also faces allegations that politically connected "Friends of Angelo" got favorable loan terms from Countrywide.

Countrywide investors got their own final kick in the stomach as the credit crunch began hurting Bank of America's own shares.