Freddie lost (25 Billion) what STRS lost.....they got front page/we didn't!?

From John Curry, November 15, 2008

November 15, 2008

Freddie Mac Lost $25.3 Billion in Quarter

Freddie Mac Seeks U.S. Aid After Posting Loss

New York Times

Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giant, said Friday that it lost $25.3 billion in the third quarter as it wrote down a tax-related asset that had buoyed its capital and the housing slump took a significant turn for the worse.

Freddie Mac’s loss as $19.44 a share, compared with a loss, before preferred dividend payments, of $1.24 billion, or $2.07 a share, a year earlier.

The government placed Freddie Mac and its larger rival, Fannie Mae, under conservatorship in September, pledging to inject capital as needed for the companies to operate and help stabilize the housing market. The companies’ regulator has submitted a request for the Treasury Department to provide $13.8 billion for Freddie Mac to erase the shareholder equity deficit.

Freddie Mac said it expected to receive the money from Treasury by Nov. 29.

Deteriorating conditions in the housing market led Freddie Mac to increase its provision for credit losses to $5.7 billion in the third quarter from $2.5 billion in the second quarter. It also recorded $9.1 billion in write-downs on securities and $6.0 billion in other credit-related expenses, guarantee assets and derivatives, up from a $481 million loss in the previous period.

The government took Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae on concern that mortgage losses were eroding the capital they needed to operate as the top funders of residential loans. The companies together own or guarantee nearly half of all mortgages.

Earlier this week, Fannie Mae said it lost $29 billion in the third quarter, more than it earned from 2002 to 2006. Most of the Fannie loss reflected a $9.2 billion charge for credit expenses and a $21.4 billion write-down of deferred tax assets.

[And if it weren't for one lone STRS Board member asking some hard questions and demanding answers, do you think we would EVER have been told we lost $25 billion in one year?]