Freddie Mac offers buyout amid government overhaul effort: report

Mortgage giant Freddie Mac appears to be looking to downsize amid a sweeping reform push spearheaded by the Trump administration.

The government-sponsored enterprise has offered early retirement packages to one-quarter of its workforce who meet certain requirements, four people briefed on the matter told Reuters on Wednesday. That's about 1,650 employees. Freddie Mac expects about 6 percent of those offered the buyout to take it.

A spokesperson for Freddie Mac did not immediately return FOX Business’ request for comment.

Staffers had been previously made aware of the buyouts, but it was not immediately clear how many people had already accepted the offer, according to Reuters.

As of February, the company had more than 6,600 employees.

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Meanwhile, the federal government is moving forward with plans to reform both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mac by seeking to remove the two companies from government control. The effort that is being led by the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The FHFA began interviewing Wall Street investment banks to help guide Fannie and Freddie through an initial public offering, which could be among the largest stock sales in history, which was previously reported by FOX Business,

Aside from removing the mortgage giants from conservatorship, the administration’s other reform goals include improving access to sustainable mortgages, preserving the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and enabling access to federal housing programs to help finance the purchase of first homes.

Fannie and Freddie do not originate loans. Instead, they purchase and guarantee them on the secondary market. They guarantee more than half of the nation’s mortgages.

It has been more than a decade since Fannie and Freddie were taken into conservatorship by the federal government in the aftermath of the 2008 recession. The federal government gave them a bailed out of about $200 billion at the height of the financial crisis.

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