Bush Offers Plan to Save Fannie, Freddie
WASHINGTON — Alarmed about the sharply eroding confidence in the nation’s two largest mortgage finance companies, the Bush administration will ask Congress to approve a rescue package that would give the government the authority to buy billions of dollars in stock in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and also lend to the companies to meet their short-term funding needs, people briefed about the plan said on Sunday.
Separately, the Federal Reserve voted on Sunday to also open a lending facility for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, if they need emergency capital. The two companies would be able to post their own securities as collateral.
The plan calls on Congress to give the government the authority over the next two years to buy an unspecified amount of stock in the two companies. Over the same period of time, it would permit the companies to have greater access to the Treasury, by expanding the credit line that each company has from the Treasury. Each company now has a $2.25 billion credit line, set nearly 40 years ago by Congress. At the time, Fannie had only about $15 billion in outstanding debt. It now has total debt of about $800 billion, while Freddie has about $740 billion.
Today the two companies also hold or guarantee mortgages valued at more than $5 trillion.
As part of the plan, the administration will also call on Congress to raise the national debt limit, people briefed on the plan said. And it will ask Congress to give the Federal Reserve a role in setting the rules for how big a capital cushion each company must hold. Giving the Fed a consulting role in the companies’ oversight is seen as yet another way to reassure nervous markets.
Treasury officials declined to comment on the plan but indicated that a statement would be issued later on Sunday. It was described by lawmakers and officials at other agencies that have been briefed on it.
They said that the Bush administration was hoping that Congress would adopt it quickly as part of a measure intended to help the housing markets and overhaul the regulation of Fannie and Freddie. Last Friday, the Senate approved the measure, and the House is hoping to take it up this week.
Announcement of the plan on Sunday evening was intended to send a sharp signal to both stock markets and debt markets that the government was standing behind the beleaguered companies.
Throughout the weekend, senior officials from the Treasury and the Federal Reserve closely monitored preparations by Freddie Mac to raise money help meet its short-term funding needs. Top officials spent Saturday and Sunday being briefed on Wall Street’s appetite for a $3 billion debt offering by Freddie Mac that was set for Monday. Officials said they were watching to see if the steep declines last week of Freddie and Fannie stock would spill into the debt market and undermine the confidence of lenders.
Fannie and Freddie have grown to become central to the nation’s housing markets. They buy mortgages from banks and other lenders, hold some of them, and sell others in the form of mortgage backed securities. Together, they own or guarantee nearly half the nation’s mortgages. In recent months, the stocks of the two companies have plunged as a wave of foreclosures has eroded confidence in the companies.
The credit line provided by the Treasury to the companies has always been seen by the market place as evidence that the two companies would be rescued by the government if they ever encountered severe financial problems. Yet for many years, a steady of stream of leaders from the Federal Reserve and to officials from Republican and Democratic administrations has denied the existence of a so-called “implicit guarantee.” Those who denied the existence of the guarantee included Treasury secretaries Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers and Henry M. Paulson Jr., and Federal Reserve Chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben S. Bernanke.
The implicit guarantee was a useful device both for the companies and the federal government. It has enabled the companies to get money in the debt markets at rates far lower than other companies and close to the same as treasury securities. At the same time, the Federal government did not have to record on its budget any significant liabilities for the large subsidy it was, in effecting, providing to the companies. Yet it also raised concerns among critics, who said it was unfair to rival companies and that it promoted a management laxity since executives knew that the companies could always count on a hand from the government if they began to falter.
Now, in the face of market turmoil in recent days, a quiet yet dramatic policy shift has occurred. Government officials no longer deny the existence of a guarantee. Instead, senior officials at both the Fed and the Treasury have been talking in recent days of possibly taking steps to “harden the guarantee.”
Motivating the change was the central role of the two institutions and the depth of ownership in the paper they have issued. Every major bank, and many mutual funds and pension funds and foreign governments, hold significant amounts of securities issued by Fannie and Freddie, which have been viewed over the years as being almost as safe as treasury securities. A default by either one of the companies could be catastrophic for the financial system.
No comments:
Post a Comment