Freddie Mac reported a second-quarter net income of $4.2 billion, compared to $524 million for the first quarter of 2015, an astounding 702% increase in just one quarter.
The company also reported comprehensive income of $3.9 billion for the second quarter of 2015, compared to $746 million for the first quarter of 2015. Comprehensive income is a more important measure in terms of conservatorship.
Second-quarter comprehensive income benefited by approximately $1.5 billion thanks to increasing interest rates and the steepening yield curve during the quarter.
Comprehensive income also was estimated to benefit by approximately $700 million due to the impact of improved spreads on its marked-to-market mortgage assets.
The enterprise continues to execute sales of seriously delinquent single-family loans and reclassified $3.6 billion and $4.5 billion in unpaid principal balance of such loans from held-for investment to held-for-sale in the first and second quarters of 2015, respectively, which resulted in a benefit for credit losses, offset by decreases in other non-interest income and increases in non-interest expense in both periods.
Other non-interest income posted a loss of $594 million for the second quarter of 2015, compared to income of $256 million for the first quarter of 2015.
The shift to a loss was mostly due to higher fair value losses on mortgage loans driven by an increase in interest rates, as well as a higher volume of seriously delinquent single-family loans that were reclassified from held-for-investment to held-for-sale during the second quarter.
However, these losses were partially offset by a shift to fair value gains on Structured Agency Credit Risk debt notes from fair value losses in the first quarter of 2015.
“Our very solid financial results show that Freddie Mac, while in conservatorship, is building a strong operating business model that represents taxpayers well and is efficiently serving U.S. homebuyers and renters. We continue to invest in improving the customer experience, and we lead the industry in reducing the taxpayers’ exposure to mortgage credit risk,” said Donald Layton, CEO of Freddie Mac.
“Also, we continue to make progress on our 2015 Conservatorship Scorecard objectives, which support our mission of providing liquidity, stability and affordability to the mortgage market, including responsibly increasing access to affordable housing for America’s families in a safe and sound way,” Layton added.
