Countrywide Financial Corp. is working on putting together another billion-dollar bailout plan as the nation’s largest lender struggles amid a global credit crunch and rapidly declining housing market.

The New York Post reported that the Calabasas-based lender is working with Goldman Sachs and law firm Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz to structure another investment similar to the deal it inked with Bank of America last month.

The paper reported that a group that could include J.P. Morgan and Citigroup as well as several hedge funds has expressed interest in Countrywide and is hammering out a deal that could be announced as soon as the end of the month.

Last month, Bank of America paid $2 billion for a series of non-voting preferred stock in the struggling lender that provide an annual dividend of 7.25 percent and can be converted into common stock at $18 per share.

Countrywide also announced plans late last week to cut its workforce by as much as 20 percent, or 12,000 jobs, in an effort to cut costs prompting analysts at Merrill Lynch and UBS to cut their profit estimates for the company, sending shares down as much as 5 percent. The stock, which has fallen nearly 60 percent this year, closed at a four-year low of $17.21 Monday and was dropping further Tuesday.

Also adding to the fire, French investment firm Alliance Capital Management, which is owned by giant French insurance company AXA SA, sold about 31 million shares of Countrywide in August and Barclays Global Investors dumped nearly 25 million shares.

Shares in Countrywide were down 5.6 percent, or 96 cents, to $16.25 in afternoon trading Tuesday.