Fannie Mae Posts Profit That Sets a Record (New York Times)

New York Times
(2/21/2014 6:49 PM, Shaila Dewan)

The mortgage giant Fannie Mae passed a symbolic milestone at the end of the fourth quarter, generating profits that will push its total payments to the federal government higher than the amount it received in the 2008 bailout, the company reported Friday.

The company earned a record $84 billion in profit in 2013, it said, and the fourth quarter was its eighth consecutive profitable quarter. Next month it will hand over its fourth-quarter dividend of $7.2 billion. That means that Fannie and its competitor Freddie Mac, which also received a bailout, will have poured more into federal coffers, $192.4 billion, than they received in government support, $189.5 billion.

The payment does not wipe out their draws on the Treasury, however, or remove them from conservatorship. There is no mechanism for the companies to pay back their debt, but in return for the bailout the government has claimed all of their profits. The company’s profitability may slow the momentum of efforts on Capitol Hill to change the nation’s housing finance system. President Obama, Democrats and Republicans have all voiced support for such reform.