Fannie
to Sell “3900 Wisconsin Ave”
Fannie Mae officials told staff on Wednesday that they plan
to sell their distinctive and prized 3900 Wisconsin, Avenue, NW headquarters,
in the next few years, and move all staff to downtown DC, consolidating employees
from a handful of area locations in a single leased facility.
If they follow through, it troubles me that Fannie is
going to give up the much heralded building. But I am more surprised that they have
the balls to plan three years into the future, given that so many people want
to behead, eviscerate, abolish or otherwise shut them down.
I can’t wait to hear the rationale and the inevitable
complaints from the Hill regardless of the price they receive for this very, very
prime piece of Washington real estate and no matter where they move.
Don’t be surprised if many of the august area private
schools (Sidwell, Cathedral, St. Alban’s, Maret) look covetously on the
acreage, if no more than to demolish it and build anew.
Then there is the question of what Freddie does, if as I
suspect this move was dictated by FHFA (which must have had something to do
with it), since Freddie’s McLean, Virginia HQ is not that picturesque, albeit
newer.
When I first started at Fannie in 1983, there were daily
rumors about “Arab investors” wanting to acquire the location, with its red
brick Williamsburg look, which--before Fannie bought it--formerly had been home to an insurance company.
That company was called “the little Equitable” to
distinguish it from the NYC giant with a similar name.
Fannie’s attractive and well-manicured site once was scouted
by Hollywood for possible location filming as part of the movie “St Elmo’s
Fire.” That didn’t happen, although some scenes for the movie were shot in
DC’s nearby Georgetown section.
One Fannie Mae vet reminded me, if Fannie moves downtown,
it will come full circle, since their original pre-3900 offices were there
at the Madison Hotel on 15th Street, NW.
Then company officials responsible for the move to upper
Wisconsin Avenue, managed to reopen a shutdown Virginia brickyard to
supply matching bricks for a 3900 building expansion.
In a future blog—while noting lots can happen in three years—I’ll
write about many of the unforgettable and some truly laughable moments which
occurred in and around 3900 during my time in the building.
One final and serious thought.
I haven’t been an insider at Fannie for 10 years, but
there is not a person now with whom I speak--at both companies or who follows
them--who fails to note how ridiculously overstaffed are both F&F.
Maybe Fannie management, before moving from its
to-die-for corporate headquarters--four long blocks from the National Cathedral,
with choice parking behind the building, and a pastoral setting beyond that--should
do a serious and critical work force audit and see if they can reduce
that number by half or more (which is the figure people always suggest) and then just
house everyone in 3900.
How many of those spots filled since the 2008 emergency
have ossified and are unnecessary, like those who hold the jobs and could thoughtfully
be jettisoned?
A surgical operation like that make more sense than
stuffing an inflated staff—with little work to keep them busy--into another non-descript
downtown DC building.
There’s architectural character and historic value in 3900 that you won’t
find elsewhere and there is virtue in lean and mean (although I realize you are
not allowed under FHFA rules to be “mean” or even entrepreneurial)!
MI
Industry Seeks More Help from FHFA
What, more pleadings to generate additional revenue?
With the QM rules fully applicable to most every loan
F&F securitizes, responsibilities should be easier for the private mortgage
insurance industry (PMIs).
MI companies provide policies on loans where the
mortgagor doesn’t have the required 20% down payment. When a default occurs,
the insurance company covers losses of the investor or guarantor.
With most but not all of their of their business going to
Fannie and Freddie, the MIs are being asked to insure a much higher quality of
loan, reducing their own risk as well.
That didn’t stop Moody’s Mark Zandi and the Urban
Institute’s Jim Parrott (I remember those
guys!) from advocating looser rules for the MI’s, in a report commenting on
the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) proposed tougher requirements for
the MI industry.
Both men were major advocates for the Senate’s CWJC bill,
which would have opened huge market opportunities for the MIs, so their
advocacy is consistent.....kind of.
Work the Hill and work the agencies. It’s an old game for
some folks.
(Note to MI
industry leaders, you might want two of your ilk--PMI, the company, and Triad--to pay F&F what they owe
from the last debacle, since their recent SEC filed 10Qs show only partial
payments.)
Tooting
Your Own Horn
When I came to Washington 45 years ago to work on Capitol
Hill for Pittsburgh Democrat, Bill Moorhead--a member of the House Banking
Committee--I remember him educating/counseling me, “He who tooteth not his own horn may not have the same tooted.”
The Congressman’s Washington self-promotion advice came
back to me while rereading some recent blogs, when I called on the
Administration to aggressively get after IS, engage other allies, and even work
with Russia (which Obama never should trust) and Assad’s government to bomb ISIS
in Syria, where they may have some vulnerable troop/equipment concentrations.
It appears the President is doing just what I suggested,
his public comments notwithstanding.
Obama is the lamest of ducks, cannot run again and I
doubt if he can help most Democrat office seekers, incumbents or newbies, but I also felt
that his personal popularity would go up with the slightest projection of
military power, which is more a comment on this nation than it our President.
Going forward, I hope that BHO speaks less and does more.
ISIS hardly is naïve and the more the President and his
aides talk about striking them in Syria, the more they disperse their assets.
More than six years into his job, the President still
hasn’t learned to act first and then talk about it afterwards.
Now, if I just could get Mr. Obama to straighten out his
head on GSEs matters.
Goldman
Sachs, Pays the Feds, F&F
Industry icon Goldman Sachs became the latest to do a FHFA
MBS perp walk and will pay $1.2 Billon for misleading F&F on mortgage
securities sales.
Look for some/most/all of that money to wind up in F&F
earnings (and therefore Treasury coffers) in the third if not fourth quarter of
2014.
And thanks to David Fiderer for alerting me to this FHFA
document which catalogues all of the revenue generated from federal actions
against lenders who, one way or another, screwed over Fannie and Freddie.
Note, this doc also refers to two cases still
outstanding.
Congressmen
Profit from “Inversion”
Are you shocked? Two GOP House leaders, including John
Boehner, the Majority Leader, are profiting from US firms taking their business
operations out of the US to avoid the US tax system. The process is called “tax
inversion,” because the move produces a reduction in corporate taxes paid.
The most recent example is Burger King buying “Tim
Horton’s” corporate donuts operation and moving to Canada where the corporate
tax bite is smaller.
I’m sure they are others in Congress from each both
parties, doing what the prominent House R’s did, making money on firms which do
that or facilitate those moves. But these guys have reported their financial
positions thus the publicity.
I wonder how the Tea Party’s “America firsters” view these
financial machinations.
Speaking
of Burger King……
Everyone knows that Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman, who owns more Fannie and
Freddie common stock than any other investor, has joined others in suing
the Treasury over the 2012 “third amendment” which swept all Fannie and Freddie
earnings into the nation’s general fund.
Ackman’s certainly “knows his onions”—as we used
to say on my street when acknowledging success and genius—but I guess he also know his
hamburgers.
On one day last week, Ackman made over $200 Million on
his Burger King investment, which now is in the $1.25 Billion range, following
BK’s acquisition of the Canadian Tim Horton Company. (See Inversion story.)
Congress should pay closer advice to tAckman who has
been pushing hard for Fannie and Freddie to be turned loose from their federal
shackles and be allowed to once again lead the nation’s mortgage finance
system.
What
Others are Saying?
Laurie Goodman and her colleagues at the Urban Institute
have put together a most readable document on mortgage finance reform, what has
and hasn’t happened and possibly the why of it. It’s linked below.
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Brandon
Ivey,
writing in Inside Mortgage Finance, notes predictable GOP opposition to
the SEC’s proposal to tighten up rules for the rating agencies, which so
glaringly abetted the big bank’s PLS activities in 2006 and 2007 by issuing
inflated ratings for $2 Trillion of junk mortgage bonds which soon failed.
http://www.insidemortgagefinance.com/imfnews/1_426/daily/New-sec-rules-will-affect-due-diligence-firms-working-on-mbs-1000028669-1.html
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Added post-facto. The NYT today ran a panel discussion about bank responsibility and making banks more ersponsible. I am adding it to the blog because I read it post publication.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/08/27/holding-bankers-accountable/treat-executives-like-other-criminal-suspects
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Added post-facto. The NYT today ran a panel discussion about bank responsibility and making banks more ersponsible. I am adding it to the blog because I read it post publication.
Maloni,
8-28-2014
