Mortgage, Bank Bailout | featured news

Fannie Mae earned $17.2 billion last year, the biggest annual profit in the U.S. mortgage giant's history, helped by a record fourth quarter.

The Treasury said on Friday it is changing the way Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will repay taxpayers in a move the Obama administration said would accelerate the winding down of the government-owned mortgage financiers.

The government-backed mortgage financier said it made a profit in the first quarter and that it does not need additional bailout money — a first since the federal government took it over in 2008.

U.S. mortgage giant Fannie Mae made money in the first three months of the year and is not seeking additional federal aid. It's the first time the company has reported a net income gain since it was taken over by the government during the 2008 financial crisis....

The federal regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said it would eliminate performance-based bonuses for senior executives at the two mortgage-finance firms.

Bank of America made $2 billion in the last three months of last year, reversing a loss from a year earlier. It offset legal expenses over mortgages and losses in its investment...

Mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac FMCC.OB said on Monday it would ask for an additional $1.5 billion from taxpayers due to losses stemming from the weak housing market.

American International Group, the insurer that sold off several major units in its effort to repay its 2008 bailout, plans to keep its once-troubled but now rapidly growing mortgage-insurance unit.

Mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae said it would ask for an additional $5.1 billion from taxpayers as it continues to suffer losses on loans made prior to 2009.

A federal watchdog criticized federal regulators' oversight of executive pay packages for top officials at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a report published Thursday. The top six executives at the mortgage giants earned $35 million in the last two years, according to the report from the inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates the mortgage giants.