Fannie Mae Misses Another Financial Deadline

Fannie Mae filed its second consecutive Form 12b-25 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week, reporting that it will not file its First Quarter 2005 10-Q report with that agency in a timely manner.

Earlier this year the Fannie Mae Corporation filed a Form 12b-25 for Fourth Quarter 2004 and still has not produced that quarterly report. Fannie has also informed the SEC that it is still unable to provide “a reasonable estimate” of its earnings for either 2003 or 2004. Estimates of a “restatement of earnings” for the years 2001 through 2004 range up to $9 billion. The Corporation did say that its administrative expenses for the First Quarter rose to an estimated $440 million from $383 million which appears to be the amount expended during the first quarter of 2004. It is assumed that the increase is due to the massive accounting review which the Corporation has been undertaking since it admitted to accounting irregularities last summer.

Since those revelations, the SEC and the Department of Justice have announced that they are investigating the Fannie Mae Corporation. The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the agency charged with regulating Fannie Mae and its smaller sister Freddie Mac; members of Congress, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, and several mortgage and real estate interest groups have called for additional regulation of the Corporation. Greenspan and the Bush Administration want to see a forced reduction in the mortgage portfolios that the two Government Sponsored Enterprises are permitted to maintain. Key leaders in Congress, however, currently seem disposed to allow a regulator with beefed up authority some flexibility in setting portfolio limits.

In an attempt to contain the criticism arising from its account problems, Fannie Mae ditched two of its top executives and fired its accounting firm last December. In early 2005 it cut its divided for the last quarter of 2004 in half and has maintained that level for the first quarter of 2005. Its New York Stock Exchange traded stock is substantially off of its 52 week high of $77.80. Late Wednesday afternoon it stood at $56.45.