FDIC faces $10 bln IndyMac loan exposure - paper
Jan 12 (Reuters) - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp may be facing up to $10 billion in previously unknown liabilities tied to mortgages failed lender IndyMac sold to Fannie Mae, the New York Post said.
Such a liability to the FDIC's $34.6 billion insurance fund would leave the agency less able to deal with the number of bank failures expected this year, the paper said.
The FDIC agreed on Jan. 2 to sell IndyMac's assets to a consortium of private equity and hedge fund firms, including Dune Capital Management and J.C. Flowers & Co.
The FDIC, which has run IndyMac since its failure on July 11, undertook as part of the deal to share losses on a portfolio of IndyMac loans.
Fannie Mae and the FDIC have been battling over the questionable mortgages for months, the Post said.
Fannie wanted IndyMac, while it was being run by the FDIC, to repurchase the loans because they violated representation and warranty agreements, and threatened to hold up the sale of the bank until the issue was resolved, the newspaper said.
The sale went through but the liability for the Fannie mortgages was not transferred to the buyers, the paper said.
Citing sources close to the buyers, the Post said the prospective IndyMac owners, led by Steven Mnuchin of Dune Capital, successfully negotiated their release from the Fannie claim.
The FDIC and Fannie Mae could not immediately be reached by Reuters for comment.
(Reporting by Ratul Ray Chaudhuri in Bangalore; editing by John Stonestreet)
