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NEW YORK — Government-controlled Freddie Mac says its chief operating officer, Bruce M. Witherell, has resigned for personal reasons, effective immediately.
The mortgage giant said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Wednesday that Witherell will not receive any termination benefits.
Freddie Mac hired Witherell in September 2009. The position was vacant after former COO Eugene McQuade left in 2007 after three years on the job.
Witherell was managing director and global co-leader of the residential mortgage business at Morgan Stanley from 2006 until the summer of 2009. Before that, he spent 15 years at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
Freddie Mac and its sibling, Fannie Mae, almost went under during the financial crisis as they faced massive losses on risky mortgages purchased from 2005 through 2008. The government has estimated the bailouts will cost taxpayers up to $259 billion. That's nearly twice the $133 billion Fannie and Freddie are in line to receive from taxpayers so far and would make theirs the costliest bailout of the financial crisis.
The pair own or guarantee about half of all U.S. mortgages. They purchase home loans from lenders, package them into bonds with a guarantee against default and sell them to investors.
