Holdup on IndyMac deal

Fannie Mae is supposedly delaying the sale of the failed Pasadena bank, according to Housing.com. The story is that after the feds seized IndyMac back in July, Fannie Mae billed the bank for $1 billion, claiming that all kinds of warranties on loans had been either violated or misrepresented. IndyMac, which by now was under the control of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., offered $100 million to call it a day. Fannie turned it down.

According to sources inside IndyMac and familiar with the transaction, as negotiations on price of the bank’s reverse mortgage unit, Financial Freedom, and concessions on future losses between the FDIC and private buyers heated up these past two weeks, Fannie made it clear that it would not rescind its earlier repurchase claims as part of the deal. The demands mean, ostensibly, that whomever purchases IndyMac’s banking units could be forced to absorb the entire repurchase amount.

The investment group ready to make the purchase apparently is using the outstanding claim to push down the sale price. All this stuff is being reported through anonymous sources, so reader beware. But it could help explain why it's taken so long to do the deal (reports of the sale began leaking before Christmas).