Fannie Mae has appointed Hugh Frater, a member of its board of directors, to serve as its interim chief executive officer after Timothy Mayopoulos steps down next week, the company said in a statement on Monday.
Frater, 62, has been a board member since 2016 and previously was chairman and CEO of Berkadia Commercial Mortgage, Fannie Mae said. Berkadia is a joint venture of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Jefferies Financial Group Inc., according to its website.
"We are excited to have an executive with such broad experience and impressive track record as our new interim CEO," Fannie Mae Chairman Egbert Perry said in the company's statement. "Hugh has a deep understanding of the housing and the financial services industries, and his experience on our board makes him an ideal choice."
Mayopoulos said in July that he planned to step down by the end of the year, creating a potential vacancy atop a government-controlled company that is central to the U.S. housing system. Fannie Mae said at the time that it would conduct a search for a successor to Mayopoulos, who had led the company since 2012. He will leave the company on Oct. 15 and Frater will take over the following day, the company said Monday.
One potential hurdle to finding a replacement for Mayopoulos is that Congress in 2015 capped pay for the CEOs of Fannie and Freddie Mac at $600,000 a year. Lawmakers did so after the companies' regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, approved raises that would have increased compensation to about $4 million annually.
