Freddie Mac has no gun to its head on capital: CFO

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Freddie Mac, the housing finance giant that on Wednesday reported a fourth consecutive quarterly loss, said it can wait for "choppy" market conditions to improve before it raises some $5.5 billion in new capital.

"While we don't have a gun to our head, we confirmed our commitment to raise capital," Buddy Piszel, Freddie Mac's chief financial officer, told Reuters in an interview. "You are not seeing a lot of people raising capital right now in the financial space" and Freddie Mac wants to ensure the issues perform well, he said.

Freddie Mac and rival Fannie Mae faced a storm of stock selling last month as investors speculated the companies would fall short of the capital needed to offset losses sustained from delinquent mortgages. The turmoil led U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to arrange emergency measures that bolstered government backing for the companies.

The company has "absolutely not" made plans to access the Fed or Treasury contingency plans, Piszel said.

But Freddie Mac will be more conservative in managing capital in coming months, including slowing purchases to its $792 billion investment portfolio, he said. The portfolio, which has surged from $712 billion in March, will be "roughly flat" until market conditions improve, he said.

(Reporting by Al Yoon; Editing by Theodore d'Afflisio)