Freddie Presses IndyMac Case

Unlike Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac is still going after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to repurchase mortgages originated by the failed IndyMac Bank.

In its first-quarter report, filed Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Freddie said it "will receive certain amounts to partially recover our future losses" from OneWest Bank Group LLC, which bought IndyMac from the FDIC in March.

But the government-sponsored enterprise said it "will retain our continuing claims against IndyMac for loan repurchases." It said the thrift had suspended such repurchases during the nine months it was in FDIC conservatorship. Freddie estimated that these and other "servicing-related" claims against IndyMac totaled about $800 million.

Freddie did not say how much it expects to collect from OneWest. Neither Steven Mnuchin, OneWest's chairman and chief executive, nor Michael Cosgrove, a Freddie spokesman, would comment for this story.

The FDIC did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

Fannie said in its first-quarter filing last week that it received a payment from the FDIC in March and agreed "to waive enforcement against the FDIC and the buyer of certain of our repurchase and indemnity rights."

The GSE said the FDIC payment "was significantly less" than the amount of "existing and projected losses related to repurchases," for which it had filed a claim against IndyMac while the thrift was in conservatorship. Fannie did not give the size of the payment or the claim.

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