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Freddie Mac sees profit, still needs $19 million in aid


    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mortgage finance company Freddie Mac on Thursday said it will seek a further $19 million in taxpayer aid after its first-quarter profit of $577 million failed to make up for the payment owed to the government for its controlling stake.

    The company's net income for the first three months of the year was down from last year's $676 million first quarter profit.

    Still, the $19 million it will draw from the U.S. Treasury in the first quarter is less than the $146 million the company, the second-largest source of mortgage money in the United States, received in the last quarter of 2011.

    Freddie Mac and its larger rival Fannie Mae own or guarantee about 60 percent of U.S. home loans. They have been sustained by taxpayer support since they were taken over at the height of the financial crisis in September 2008.

    In the first quarter, the company and its federal regulator focused more on "shifting risk to private investors" and ultimately reducing the size of the government's role in the housing finance market, Freddie Mac chief executive Charles Haldeman said in a statement.

    Freddie Mac has tapped $72.3 billion in Treasury aid and paid $18.3 billion to the government in the form of dividend payments.

    (Reporting by Margaret Chadbourn; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)