Gemäß ERCF verfügen FnF über reg. Kapital in Höhe von -375 Mrd. $. Das kann ein IPO in Höhe von 30 Mrd. $ nicht kompensieren. Selbst bei einer SPS-in-Stammaktienumwandlung würden immer noch rund 187 Mrd. $ fehlen (siehe im Text unten fett unterstrichen).
Der Text (von Layton) beschreibt auch, dass künftige Gewinne kaum prognostizierbar sind, wenn die Regierung weiterhin die G-Fees "im Interesse des Housingmarktes" festlegt. Das ist nicht im besten Interesse der Neuaktionäre. Folglich dürfte kaum Interesse bestehen, den IPO zu zeichnen.
furmancenter.org/thestoop/entry/...o-by-years-end-not-so-fast
...The following four non-standard conditions are examples of why a large IPO cannot happen soon.
The large regulatory capital deficiency delays and undermines shareholder control. The FHFA’s required minimum capital for F&F reflects what the FHFA calls the Enterprise Regulatory Capital Framework (ERCF), implemented in 2020.[5] As of mid-year 2025, F&F had a net worth of $166 billion, built up since mid-2019 through retained earnings. Regardless, according to the ERCF, the two companies, as of mid-2025, still had a capital deficiency of an unexpectedly large $375 billion.[6] This shortfall is so large that a $30 billion IPO would only reduce the deficiency by less than 10 percent. It would take many years of ongoing retained earnings, as well as possibly some additional share sales, to fully meet such a capital requirement. Even if the government were to convert its preferred shares to common, for which there is precedent,[7] the deficit would still be about half of the $375 billion.. This remaining deficit would still take years to eliminate.
As a result, conservatorship will likely continue for many years as it is designed to be ended only when the “conserved companies” – in this case, F&F – are fully capitalized. This means that the FHFA will maintain sole authority over F&F during this time, leaving their shareholders totally disenfranchised.[8] Such a lack of shareholder control would seem to be a poison pill to long-term investors. Adding in that the FHFA will be led by a series of politically appointed individuals, beholden to the presidential administration in place at the time and without any fiduciary duty to operate the companies on behalf of the shareholders, it is a poison pill for sure. This effectively eliminates the possibility of an IPO anytime soon.[9]
F&F’s profits after conservatorship ends cannot yet be forecast. In the years after F&F were placed into conservatorship, a consensus developed in the housing finance policy community that, if and when F&F were to exit conservatorship, changes in their business models would be necessary to ensure they did not repeat their “sins of the past,” i.e., problematic behavior and actions which primarily came from F&F exploiting loopholes in their original charters. Such changes could materially impact future earnings and thus need to be decided on and known about before an IPO in order for investors to forecast earnings as part of their process of valuing the shares.
The three possible business model changes that could most impact earnings are:
Will government support for F&F’s creditworthiness, historically free, have a cost going forward?[10] There was a strong consensus during Trump I – and not just within the administration, but broadly across the political spectrum – that the taxpayer should receive some payment for its support of GSE creditworthiness, and the Treasury’s “Housing Reform Plan” issued in 2019 called for such a payment. However, no government official has ever specified how large such a payment would be or how it would be calculated. Potentially, it could significantly reduce earnings.[11]
Who will set F&F’s guarantee fees (G-fees) in the future? Will the two companies do so, acting as they judge best? Or will the FHFA, even after conservatorship ends, set G-fees much like a state-level public utility regulator, which many housing policy people have called for? If the latter, no legislation requires that F&F earn a “fair return” – a term used in legislation at the state level to ensure utility regulators do not set rates too low. This means that neither the current nor future administrations are obligated to avoid underpricing G-fees for political advantage, leaving shareholders with inadequate returns.
Will current tight limits on F&F’s mortgage investment portfolios be relaxed? Prior to conservatorship, these portfolios, to generate income, had grown to almost $1.6 trillion, double the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet at the time, and were estimated to generate about half of F&F’s earnings. These profits, however, did not reflect investing prowess, but the abuse of GSE access to implied-guaranteed funding, which carries below-market cost.[12] It was a great example of a weakness in their charters, as such investments were allowed in unlimited amounts. Both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations wanted these portfolios to be capped as low as possible, and they are now down by over seven-eighths, at under $100 billion each for F&F. If these tight limits are relaxed, earnings could go up, although it would represent another policy U-turn that would likely be heavily criticized.
Trump II will have to work through such GSE reform-centric business model changes before anyone can determine the future earnings power of F&F, which is, of course, a necessary precedent to valuing their stock price. The politics around each business model change are significant, as different groups important to the Trump II administration hold differing opinions, which means reaching a resolution may take considerable time.
It is worth noting that Trump I and all other efforts to develop a GSE conservatorship exit proposed that such business model issues be addressed first, as their impact must be known as an input to planning the recapitalization of F&F. Trump II’s U-turn reversed this order, establishing the ending – i.e., a giant IPO – first. Administration officials will now have to go back and complete the missing steps of examining the business model. This process is apparently now getting underway, with those officials seeking to do all the necessary work in a very compressed timeframe, including talking to many relevant housing interest groups in Washington, D.C.[13]
3. The FHFA’s current required minimum capital rule, long criticized as being too high,[14] could be legitimately reduced. Any change in the capital required by FHFA for F&F – which currently is $333 billion – will be highly controversial, but the evidence is pretty strong at this point that the ERCF is simply out of line with the real risks run by F&F.[15] I note that the FHFA could relatively easily try to shift and adopt the FHFA minimum capital proposal of 2018, which was never completed, and which today would require roughly $250 billion of capital. This is still a large number, but one that is perhaps a good “Goldilocks” level, i.e., neither punitive (which the ERCF appears to be) nor lax (which was definitely the case pre-conservatorship). In any case, changing a regulatory capital requirement is time-consuming, as it has to follow the procedures of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). In my experience, this would take a minimum of six to nine months.[16]
4. Resolving other F&F capital structure issues could be time-consuming and politically challenging. First, the current amount outstanding of the senior preferred shares under the PSPA is $361 billion, of which nearly half, or $193 billion, was used to bail the companies out in the early years of conservatorship.[17] Prominent holders of F&F’s equity securities have long advocated that these senior preferred shares should be considered repaid and thus cancelled because of the substantial dividends the government has received on those preferred shares over the years.[18] However, during Trump I, this was considered a political non-starter that was especially poorly received in Congress, where many viewed it as a taxpayer handout to Wall Street.
Alternatively, as was discussed above, the senior preferred stock can be converted to common stock, as was done in the case of AIG,[19] which is the only precedent for F&F’s current situation. Trump II has to decide on this issue before any IPO could practically proceed. In either case, the common equity of the two GSEs, now listed as negative $60 billion, would increase by $193 billion and become a positive $133 billion.
Second, there are preferred shares that predate conservatorship owned by the public with a face value of $33 billion. During Trump I, Treasury discussed the possibility of negotiating with the owners of those preferred shares. Treasury aimed to obtain a discount upon conservatorship exit to prevent those investors from getting a large windfall, as the value of the public preferred shares would otherwise rebound towards par value in an exit. Any such negotiations have yet to occur, and if they were to happen, they would likely be time-consuming.
Considering all the factors involved, completing a large IPO by year’s end certainly looks like a non-starter. It would likely take considerably longer and would require Trump II to make tough decisions, take political heat for them, and require large amounts of time from senior administration officials who have other issues with which to deal. Even getting it done in 2026 might not be feasible due to the capital deficiency of the two companies, which could easily prolong the disenfranchisement of shareholders for several more years afterwards.
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