Fannie Mae is planning a bond deal that will pay buyers to share a tiny sliver of the risk of the U.S. home-lending business, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Washington, D.C.-based company plans to sell about $675 million of securities in an offering that is expected to be announced next month. The securities are derivatives whose value will depend on the performance of a pool of $28.05 billion of mortgages acquired by Fannie Mae in the third quarter of 2012. The deal follows a similar issue in July from Fannie's smaller brother, Freddie Mac. Both companies are issuing the securities to help meet a mandate from their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to reduce the cost of defaults to U.S. taxpayers, who bailed out the companies with $188 billion during the financial crisis.
