Results tagged “freddiemac”

While the cause of death for Freddie Mac's acting CFO David Kellerman isn't official (it appears to be a suicide but the ME has to do an autopsy), numerous reports say the company's problems were weighing heavily on him. The NY Times reports, "Kellerman, 41, began working nonstop, sometimes returning home only to change clothes, colleagues say. He was losing weight and telling friends that it seemed impossible to appease everyone — regulators, lawmakers, investors and other executives — given their competing demands." Freddie Mac's new CEO after the government stepped in, David Moffett, tells the Washington Post he relied tremendously on Kellerman: "The CFO of any company in today's environment is a very stressful job... particularly when you're in a company that's undergoing a tremendous amount of change and uncertainty." Another thing that plagued Kellerman: revelations that the mortgage giant's executives were getting $210 million in bonuses, with $850,000 to him. With outrage from Congress and the public over executive pay, he hired a security detail for his family. Freddie Mac had also recently disclosed the feds were investigating its accounting, disclosure and corporate governance practices.

The acting chief financial officer for Freddie Mac was found dead in his Vienna, VA home this morning. David Kellerman had been with the mortgage giant for 16 years and was made acting CFO last September, when the company, troubled by its subprime mortgages, was taken over by the U.S. Treasury. While Kellerman's wife reportedly called about an apparent suicide, authorities say they are still investigating the incident and that the final determination about whether this was a suicide will come from the medical examiner. WTOP Radio says that Freddie Mac has no comment at this time.

With conservatives wondering about the Bush administration's decision to bail out mortgage companies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, White House press secretary Dana Perino shifted blame on Congress, "President Bush initiated a call years ago to try to reform this system because he did not want the status quo to continue. Unfortunately, Congress didn't act on that." She added that Bush decided to act now because of Fannie and Freddie's impact on the economy. The NY Times' first sentence notes that while Bush is the "nation's first MBA president," it was Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson who was in charge--a deputy press secretary said Bush wanted Paulson "in the driver's seat." As for the next president, Bloomberg reports that John McCain "may privatize" the institutions while Obama "sees a federal role in housing."

After the U.S. federal government moved to take over mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac this past weekend, stock markets around the world rallied--trading in Tokyo ending 3.4% higher and in Hong Kong, it ended 4.3% higher. And in Europe, stocks also rose 3-4%.

Sources say that the federal government may take over mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as soon as this weekend. The Wall Street Journal says this "would represent perhaps the most significant intervention by the government in the financial industry since the housing bust touched off turmoil in the credit markets a little more than a year ago." The NY Times adds the move, which includes the feds standing behind Freddie's and Fannie's debt, "could cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars and make any rescue among the largest in the nation’s history." Earlier this year, the feds bailed out Bear Stearns by orchestrating its sale to JP Morgan Chase.

Today, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is making remarks at the New York Public Library about the economy, and, according to text of the speech, he'll say he believes Congress will pass a bill to "boost confidence" in failing government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which, as Bloomber News puts it, "account for almost half of the $12 trillion mortgage market." Paulson has also been making a number of public appearances recently--Face the Nation, CNBC, various Times reporters and editors-- to boost confidence in the bill itself. In other financial news, with new CEO Robert Steel (former Treasury Undersecretary), Wachovia is announcing $8.9 billion in losses; the bank said it was leaving the wholesale mortgage business yesterday.