Freddie Mac’s McQuade Turns Down the Top Job

McLEAN, Va. – Eugene McQuade, president and chief operating officer of Freddie Mac, has declined an offer to become CEO of the secondary mortgage market giant and said he will leave the company instead, when his contract expires September 1. McQuade, former president of Bank of America, and before that COO of FleetBoston Financial, has agreed to stand for election to the Freddie Mac Board. Freddie has formed a special committee of the board of directors to review succession to current CEO Richard Syron, as the company prepares to separate the positions of chairman of the board from CEO by year-end, as required by federal regulators under the settlement charges connected to the billion-dollar accounting scandal. Freddie also announced that Ronald Poe, 67, its longest-serving director, will retire and Nicholas Retsinas, former Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, has been nominated to succeed him on the board.