Freddie Mac Swings To Profit, Asks For Bailout

Freddie Mac (OTC: FMCC) requested $146 million from the U.S. Treasury to make interest payment on bailout funds, despite swinging to a profit, the troubled mortgage buyer reported Friday.

The McLean, Va.-based company's net income grew to $619 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2011, compared with a net loss of $113 million for the same quarter in 2010. For the full-year 2011, the company reported a net loss of $5.3 billion, up from a net loss of $14 billion in 2010.

Despite being in the black, Freddie Mac fell short of meeting $1.7 billion in interest payments owed to the government. It was bailed out by the Treasury during the financial crisis and placed under conservatorship, borrowing an additional $72.3 billion in federal funding since. Freddie's total debt to the federal government has grown to $170 billion.

The company must make 10 percent cash dividend payments on all government loans every quarter, paying back about $16.5 billion to the treasury so far.

The request for cash shrunk from the $6 billion it sought in the third quarter. The Treasury lent Freddie $7.6 billion for all of 2011.

We continue to be a vital source of mortgage funding -- last year alone we provided over $360 billion of liquidity to the market, said CEO Charles E. Haldeman Jr. This enabled nearly two million American families to buy or rent a home, including 1.2 million homeowners who were able to refinance their mortgages and save approximately $2,300 in annual interest payments.