FHFA Director: Receivership Not On Table For Fannie, Freddie
03 Juni 2009 - 11:46PM
Dow Jones News
The regulator for Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) said he
is not considering putting the mortgage finance companies into
receivership.
U.S. officials weighed and rejected receivership before seizing
the companies last fall and putting them into conservatorship,
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director James B. Lockhart told a
U.S. House panel Wednesday.
"At this point, we are not contemplating receivership and I
really don't see the advantage of receivership versus
conservatorship," Lockhart said.
Lockhart said he didn't see a conflict between using Fannie and
Freddie as tools to help the ailing housing market and protecting
the firms from additional losses. The companies have together lost
more than $150 billion since the third quarter of 2007. The U.S.
has pumped $86 billion into the companies under a Treasury
agreement with the firms to keep them solvent.
"The best way to conserve assets for Fannie and Freddie is by
aggressively modifying loans, refinancing loans and ensuring
liquidity in the housing market," Lockhart said, noting that the
companies own or guarantee $5.4 trillion of mortgage loans.
"If the market continues to fall, those losses will continue to
mount," he said.
Though the U.S. has agreed to pump up to $200 billion into the
firms to keep them afloat, it has stopped short of explicitly
backing the companies' debt. On Wednesday, Lockhart said there was
"no reason at this point to make that explicit" because the
government backstop had provided "an effective guarantee."
Lockhart said the government could not remove its support for
the companies until the housing market had stabilized and there was
"a profitable future" for the firms.
At that time, Lockhart said the government might disentangle
itself by isolating the firms' bad assets in a "bad bank" that
would be wound down in receivership. The structure would retain the
protection of the government backstop, he said.
-By Jessica Holzer, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9228;
jessica.holzer@dowjones.com