CoStar Group hires Freddie Mac's Christian Lown as CFO

Christian Lown, Freddie Mac's exiting chief financial officer, will be taking the same job at online data and real estate marketplace company CoStar Group.

Lown submitted his resignation to the Freddie Mac board on June 5, and it will be effective as of June 28, the last business day of the second quarter. He will be starting at CoStar on July 1.

"As we seek to build upon our strong performance in recent years, I'm confident Chris is the right person to lead CoStar Group's financial operations," said Andy Florance, CEO, in a press release. "He brings an unparalleled understanding of M&A, capital markets and corporate finance and, through his time at Freddie Mac, an intricate knowledge of the homebuying market at a time when our Homes.com platform is experiencing exponential growth."

Regarding mergers and acquisitions, CoStar is known for a couple that it wasn't successful on. It was the hostile bidder in 2021 for CoreLogic, submitting a $7.25 billion offer for the company.

But citing rising mortgage rates, it abruptly ended its pursuit on March 4, 2021, allowing the previously inked deal between CoreLogic and Stone Point Capital/Insight Partners to close.

Then in early 2023, it was in discussions with News Corp. to purchase the parent company of Realtor.com, but the Murdoch family company elected to end the talks.

Lown is leaving Freddie Mac after almost exactly four years in the role, starting in the job on June 15, 2020. Prior to that, he held the same title at student loan servicer Navient Corp.

From May 2006 through March 2017, Lown was at Morgan Stanley, where he was a managing director of the financial institutions group. He also worked at UBS as a vice president and Credit Suisse as an associate.

"I'm thrilled to join CoStar Group, which I've always held in high esteem for its incredible trajectory from startup to market leader in commercial real estate data and online real estate marketplaces," said Lown in the press release. "Joining CoStar Group is a career honor, and I am very much looking forward to driving it forward with the rest of the senior management team to even greater heights."