Mario Ugoletti, economist and senior advisor at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and the subject of the ongoing Fairholme Funds v. The United States case, retired from the agency effective Sept. 30.Ugoletti was a senior official with the Department of Treasury during the government bailout of the GSEs and was special advisor to FHFA Director Mel Watt. Among other things, he helped draft the now-controversial “Senior Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement” whereby Treasury is allowed to “sweep” almost all of the quarterly profits of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The PSPA has been challenged in court by investors that are speculating in the common and preferred stock of the two GSEs. In a sworn statement filed in DC federal court last
With front-end risk-sharing by the GSEs being a hot topic as of late, this week the U.S. Mortgage Insurers released an analysis touting the benefits of risk sharing with mortgage insurers and said it may even help lower guaranty fees. The group proposes MI coverage as deep as 50 percent of the home’s value. …
New Actual-Loss Risk Transfers for Fannie, Freddie. This week, Fannie Mae announced that it priced its latest credit risk-sharing transaction under its Connecticut Avenue Securities series. While this is Fannie’s 9th CAS deal, this is its first CAS transaction structured using an actual-loss framework, which will be the standard for the CAS program going forward. The $1.45 billion note offering is scheduled to settle on Oct. 27. Meanwhile, Freddie Mac also announced its intention to sell its seventh Structured Agency Credit Risk debt notes offering this year for more than $1 billion. This STACR Series 2015-DNA3 offering is the company’s fourth transaction where losses will be allocated based on the actual losses. FHFA, GSE Departures. The most recent Fannie Mae executive...
In a spurt of new activity unveiled at the annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association this week, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are ramping up the competition between each other, announcing new programs and partnerships and acting as though housing reform is not on the radar anytime soon. And it may not be. While rumors have swirled recently, hinting that the government-sponsored enterprises may be released from conservatorship, White House and Treasury officials confirmed this week that there are no such plans to recapitalize and release the two from government stewardship. “None of us should be misled...
Michael Fratantoni, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association, said the GSEs’ back-end risk-sharing deals do not represent the type of reform most industry participants would like to see.
One of Fannie’s and Freddie’s reputed “sins” was donating large sums of money to politicians who, in turn, ran interference for them on Capitol Hill...
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