TheMReport — News and strategies for the evolving mortgage marketplace.
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COVER STORY THE TOP 5 LENDING LEADERS former general counsel with Bank of America, each takes the reins at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, respectively, as the mort- gage giants seek to turn a new leaf with the American taxpayer. The two couldn't step in any early to determine how the two new execs will change Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. What's clear is that both men have their work cut out for them. Insiders concur that it's still too says that more than 74 percent of homeowners stay in their homes after just one year of counseling. As a quiet voice for homeown- ers seeking relief, the CredAbility CEO stands above the politics of the housing recovery. "The home is the single biggest As for the results? Baldwin asset people have," he tells us. "It's the place where they can raise their families. CredAbility has the unique infrastructure to touch people's lives." 1LENDING LEADER DONALD LAYTON more quickly. Their predecessors left under a cloud of criticism from Capitol Hill over $13 million in bonuses last year for them- selves and 11 other senior-level executives, with FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco and Congress jointly limiting pay grades to the same for high-rank- ing bureaucrats. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac meanwhile occupy what some call an unsustainable place in the secondary mortgage mar- ket, with nearly nine out of 10 mortgages across the country under their guarantee. The two companies recently eked out positive net worth during the second quarter—with $3 billion for Freddie Mac and $2.8 billion for Fannie Mae—just narrowly evading Treasury draws. Even so, the mortgage giants 2LENDING LEADER TIMOTHY MAYOPOULOS decided to cram the new chief executives for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into our No. 1 and No. 2 slot accordingly—if only because these two men could take the phrase "government sponsorship" out of GSE. Donald Layton, former CEO It takes two to tango. We with E*Trade Financial Corp., and Timothy Mayopoulos, 26 | THE M REPORT 3LENDING LEADER PHIL BALDWIN plays as CEO of CredAbility comes with a mission statement. The chief executive speaks wistfully about older times, better times, once-upon-a-times, when the middle class thrived on good-paying jobs and solid home equity. "The middle class is seeing For Phil Baldwin, the role he remain under both scrutiny and criticism, with many reformers arguing more vocally than before that a federal lifeline for either will lead to the next financial crisis. Enter Layton, a former JPMorgan Chase official, and Mayopoulos, who joined Fannie Mae three years ago. Both ar- rive as seasoned hands from the financial services world. Many see Layton, widely credited with turning around troubled insurer AIG, as the cure to the revolving- door syndrome at Fannie Mae. Mayopoulos may have different ideas for ailing Fannie Mae. Appearing on CNBC, he recently said that the mortgage giant "needs to shrink," if only because "private capital is sitting on the sidelines." CredAbility, a foreclosure preven- tion agency, all the cause it needs to court homeowners with an overhang of mortgage debt and the inability to step out from underneath it. According to its website, HUD- more and more challenges," he says. "Education is becoming less and less attainable for families, with student debt higher than credit card debt." And that, for Baldwin, gives certified housing counselors with CredAbility have held more than 400,000 foreclosure prevention counseling sessions with home- owners. Of these, according to a spokesperson, average income amounted to $51,081 in 2011, a sharp increase from $40,534 in 2006, just before the recession. 4LENDING LEADER LISA WHITAKER to-shoulder with Donald Layton or Timothy Mayopoulos, but Lisa Whitaker tops a list of her own in upstate New York, where she serves as CEO of Ithaca- based CFCU Community Credit Union. Of so many lenders in a She may not stand shoulder- credit-sapped economy, CFCU remarkably accounts for 26.4 percent of the share in its market, topping a list of other lenders that CreditUnions.com ranked for the region. The credit union, currently worth $800 million, banks on an in-house staff responsible for closing and originating home loans. Asked what made CFCU so successful, Whitaker nods at community involvement by board members, executives, and staff members. "We live here locally. We raise our families