Freddie CEO: Reform, Earnings May Take Time

Freddie Mac chairman and chief executive Richard Syron is planning for both the passage of government-sponsored enterprise oversight reform legislation and the release of revised earnings, but indicated in talks at The Bond Market Association annual meeting in New York that it may take some time for both to come to fruition.When asked at a press briefing about a planned release of Freddie Mac's revised earnings slated for June 30, Mr. Syron stopped just short of promising the GSE would adhere to that schedule, noting that he would rather ensure that they would be completely accurate when they were released than keep to a timetable. "Things are coming along pretty well," he said. However, he added that the company was not making any "locked-in-concrete guarantees." He also indicated in a question and answer session following his speech that he expects that GSE oversight reform legislation will likely be an issue that carries over into next year, at which time Mr. Syron hopes the company will be in better shape to address it. While he declined to comment more broadly on negotiations involving regulatory reform for strategic reasons, he said - when asked about the receivership issue that has been a sticking point - that that would be an issue of concern to Freddie Mac mostly to the extent that it "would affect our rating." Standard & Poor's has indicated that original versions of proposed legislation that would have allowed receivership to occur without congressional review were a concern in terms of the GSEs' ratings. But the subsequent version changed via an amendment that included congressional review would not affect GSE ratings, S&P said.