Fannie and Freddie were thrown a government lifeline over the weekend but several regional banks with sizeable equity stakes in the two firms won’t be so lucky.
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10 regional banks with exposure to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae preferred stock*
- Gateway Financial ( nasdaq: GBTS ) (34%)
- Midwest Banc ( nyse: MBHI ) (32%)
- Westamerica Bancorporation ( nasdaq: WABC ) (16%)
- Farmers Capital (14%)
- Sovereign Bancorp ( nyse: SOV ) (13%)
- Flushing Financial ( nasdaq: FFIC ) (12%)
- Valley National Bancorp ( nyse: VLY ) (10%)
- Pulaski Financial ( nasdaq: PULB ) (10%)
- Columbia Banking ( nyse: COLB ) (8%)
- Astoria Financial ( nyse: AF ) (7%)
*Percentage represents holdings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a percentage of total tangible capital.
Henneke of Tyche Capital had this to say to CNBC:
The end result of the global economic slowdown may be the U.S. announcing national bankruptcy as the government cannot afford the bailouts that it promised and the market will not bail out the government, Martin Hennecke, senior manager of private clients at Tyche, told CNBC on Thursday.
“We expect a depression in the United States. We expect a depression, very possibly, also in Europe,” Hennecke said on “Worldwide Exchange.”
The estimated $300 billion cost of the Fannie/Freddie bailout will probably be considered as a loss that the government will have to take, therefore passing it on to taxpayers, he explained.
“We already have $3 trillion of debt, as far as the U.S. government is concerned. These debt figures across the U.S. economy are rising very sharply.”
When the government can no longer pass the United States’ “immense debt” on to taxpayers, it will turn to the holders of U.S. dollars, leading to the eventual downfall of the currency, Hennecke said.
