Freddie mac的坏帐损失加倍

henry

Freddie Mac Net Loss Widens
By JAMES R. HAGERTY
November 20, 2007 9:38 a.m.

Freddie Mac, sucked into the downward spiral of the U.S. housing and mortgage markets, reported a loss of $2 billion for the third quarter and said it is "seriously considering" a 50% cut in its fourth-quarter dividend.

Freddie also said it is considering ways to raise additional capital.

Freddie's results were worse than the $1.4 billion loss recorded 11 days ago by the company's bigger rival, Fannie Mae.

Losses at Fannie and Freddie constrain their ability to perform their role of funneling money into the mortgage market when other investors are leery of home loans, said Jim Vogel, an analyst at FTN Financial Capital Markets, Memphis, Tenn. Though Fannie and Freddie remain huge sources of funding for mortgages, their woes could prolong the shortage of capital that is forcing lenders to ration credit and hurting demand for housing.

Freddie had a loss of $715 million a year earlier. The loss for the latest quarter reflects a provision for credit losses of $1.2 billion. In addition, the company marked down assets by $3.6 billion to match the current depressed market levels.

Freddie said it has hired Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers to help it "consider very near-term capital-raising alternatives." Last week, Fannie raised $500 million with a sale of preferred stock.

The two government-chartered companies own or guarantee a combined $4.8 trillion of U.S. home mortgages, or nearly half of those outstanding. They get fees for guaranteeing payments on mortgage-backed securities held by others but must reimburse holders of those securities when borrowers default. Falling home prices worsen the losses they face in disposing of homes acquired through foreclosures.

The results came less than two weeks after Freddie extended the contract of Chairman and CEO Richard Syron through 2009, raised his base salary to $1.3 million from $1.1 million and awarded him a $3.5 million "extension bonus." His total compensation last year was $14.7 million.         

Mr. Syron said in a statement that he remains optimistic about Freddie's longer-term prospects, adding that the recent shift toward more conservative lending practices will benefit the company.

The losses have left the company with core capital of $34.6 billion as of Sept. 30, only $600 million above the minimum amount it is required by regulators to hold. The regulatory agency, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, has imposed minimum capital levels for Fannie and Freddie that are 30% above those required by law. The capital "surcharge" came in the wake of accounting scandals at both companies in recent years.

Because it had little margin over its capital requirement, Freddie said it was limited in its ability to take advantage of opportunities to buy mortgages and sold about $20 billion of them in September and another $25 billion in October.