Tag Archives: GSE Profits

Non-partisan seniors advocacy group 60 Plus Association, Inc., and several other groups and individuals have filed amicus briefs in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on behalf of Perry Capital, the plaintiffs in a dismissed lawsuit against the government regarding the sweeping of GSE profits into Treasury.

The newspaper has asked the Court to remove the protected information tag from the depositions of Edward DeMarco, who was the director of the Federal Housing Finance Administration from 2009 to 2014, and Mario Ugoletti, who was a senior official with the U.S. Department of Treasury in 2008 when the government bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at a combined price of $187.5 billion.

DeValk noted that when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken into conservatorship by the FHFA in September 2008, the GSEs agreed to pay quarterly fixed dividends to Treasury that were equal to 10 percent of the total amount of outstanding funding that Treasury had provided for the enterprises.

The step of setting aside a portion of GSE profits for capitalization of a cash window would achieve the goal of reducing taxpayer risk through risk sharing while preserving full small lender access, according to the letter. CHLA first addressed the subject last year in a letter to FHFA last July.

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has written separate letters to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and U.S. Department of Treasury Secretary Jack Lew seeking more transparency from the government regarding GSE profits.

A status conference for a lawsuit filed by Wall Street investment firm Fairholme Funds against the government over the sweeping of GSE profits into the U.S. Department of Treasury is scheduled for Tuesday, March 31, according to a spokesperson in the chambers of U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Margaret Sweeney.

In a white paper released Wednesday titled "The Continued Profitability of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is Not Assured," the Office of Inspector General of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) warned that the profitability of the two GSEs may not continue due to their having to rely on core earnings for profits in the future.

A hugely profitable year in 2013 for both Fannie Mae ($84 billion) and Freddie Mac ($49 billion) shifted widespread speculation from winding down the two GSEs to instead ending FHFA's conservatorship of the two Enterprises, which began in September 2008 after the two received a combined $188 billion from Treasury in bailout funds.

Freddie Mac's fourth-quarter profit only make up a fraction of what it will pay to the government in March. Per the terms of its bailout agreement, the company will hand $900 million over the Treasury, bringing its total payback to $91.8 billion—nearly $20 billion more than what it was forced to draw to keep from going under.

Freddie Mac will report its fourth quarter and full year 2014 financial results in a conference call with the media on Thursday, February 19, beginning at 9 a.m. Eastern time, according to an announcement from the GSE.