Las grietas se extienden

Las dos hipotecarias públicas más grandes de EU se encuentran también en problemas por la crisis "crediticia". ¿Quién sigue?

WHEN it comes to nasty surprises, this is the credit crisis that keeps on giving. Until recently it had been assumed that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that tower over America’s mortgage market, could survive the storm with merely a few bruises. They may own or guarantee almost half of the $11 trillion in outstanding loans but, the thinking went, they would avoid severe pain because they had generally stuck to good-quality credits. Indeed, they even stood to benefit as rival sources of funding dried up.

That script is now being dramatically rewritten. Earlier this month, Fannie posted a $1.4 billion quarterly loss. An even bigger blow came on Tuesday November 20th, when Freddie joined its ugly sister in the red, to the tune of $2 billion, and said that it would seek (read: have) to raise new capital to shore up its balance sheet. Fannie has already tapped markets for more than $500m in fresh equity. Freddie’s share price dropped by 29% on the day of its results, wiping out several years of gains.

Only a few weeks ago, politicians were calling for the lifting of regulatory caps on the portfolios of GSEs—imposed in 2005 after they were found to have mis-stated profits by a combined $11.3 billion—so that they could take up the slack in the mortgage market as private lenders fold or retreat. They have already picked up a lot of extra business and have also been able to raise the fees they charge to guarantee loans. But their capital squeeze—Freddie is down to a mere $600m more than the required minimum—leaves them poorly placed to continue serving as liquidity providers of last resort. As they tighten the spigot to conserve equity, the result will be to exacerbate the housing downturn, says Howard Shapiro of Fox-Pitt, Kelton.