Fannie Mae laying off 62 in DEI, COO, and other units: Pulte

Fannie Mae has staged a new round of layoffs impacting 62 people viewed as working in noncore functions, according to Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte's social media post.

Pulte, who has said he posts announcements informally on social media platforms like X first to provide immediate transparency, indicated that the cuts were made in areas that included the chief operating officer's office, information technology, and diversity, equity and inclusion.

"We, like any business, must eliminate positions that are not core," Pulte said in his X post, noting that any of Fannie's more than 7,000 employees not central to mortgages and new homes sales could be in that category.

Fannie recently named COO Peter Akwaboah its acting CEO, and appointed two new co-presidents after Priscilla Almodovar's recent departure, but it was not clear whether the cuts in the chief operating officer's unit specifically involved him.

Akwaboah was listed as COO on Fannie's website at the time of this writing. Fannie had not immediately responded to a request for comment. An inquiry into whether Fannie's counterpart Freddie Mac was making similar cuts also did not receive an immediate response.

The two new co-presidents Fannie named are John Roscoe and Brandon Hamara.

Hamara is a former Tri Point Homes executive who will be playing a key role in a Trump administration plan to have the GSEs work with builders in such a way that they produce a greater number of lower price homes. Hamara also will continue to serve on Fannie's board.

During President Trump's first term, Roscoe was chief of staff at the FHFA, which Pulte has rebranded US Federal Housing.

David Benson, a former Fannie president, also is returning to the government-sponsored enterprise recently as a senior advisor, according to Pulte. In addition, the head of Fannie's single-family division and general counsel also left. The GSE has named acting replacements.

The Trump administration has broadly sought to eliminate DEI positions and initiatives and Pulte has been no exception. Pulte's posts on Thursday emphasized his interest in doing away with DEI this multiple times. Pulte has shown some interest in technology initiatives.

Fannie also reportedly eliminated some ethics positions, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing anonymous sources, but there was no attributed confirmation of this at deadline.

The layoffs follow the release of earnings at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in which their bottom lines beat previous quarter results but came in below year-ago numbers due primarily to relative changes in credit provisions related to shifts in the outlooks for home prices and interest rates.

The Trump administration is contemplating a new public offering for some of Fannie and Freddie's shares in an effort to monetize them and indicated this could happen before the year is out if a determination is made to move ahead with it.

Fannie and Freddie's existing shares have drifted a little lower in price recently and Pulte has emphasized that investors would read standard risk disclosures before buying any stock.

Fannie's stock was at levels approaching $12 per share five days ago, but it was closer to $10.50 Thursday. Freddie's shares were trading near $10.25 at the outset of the last five-day period and were trading at $9.77 at the time of this writing.