Fannie Mae said this morning that it notified the Securities and Exchange Commission that it will miss the March 16 deadline to file its 2005 annual report.
The lender said it expects that its annual report, which will include its restated results for 2004, won’t be submitted before the second half of the year.
In its SEC filing, Fannie Mae cited the process and potential timing of its restatement and re-audit for the delay. The company said that its financial statement from January 2001 to the second quarter of 2004 should no longer be relied upon. It will be restating financials from the years ended Dec. 31, 2002 and 2003, and the quarters ended March 31, and June 30 of 2004.
Both Fannie Mae and its fellow government-sponsored enterprise, Freddie Mac, have been rocked by accounting scandals. In December 2004, Fannie Mae replaced Franklin Raines, its chairman and CEO, who announced he was taking early retirement, and Fannie Mae’s chief financial officer, Timothy Howard, resigned Dec. 21.
In early February of this year, the Bush administration said Congress should create a new regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and direct it to cut the $1.4 trillion investment portfolios held by the government-sponsored enterprises.
“We are not able to file a timely Form 10-K because we have not completed our financial statements for 2005,” Fannie Mae said in the SEC filing. “We have determined that our previously filed interim and audited financial statements for the periods from January 2001 through the second quarter of 2004 should no longer be relied upon. Accordingly, we are conducting a restatement of our historical financial statements for the years ended December 31, 2003, and 2002, and for the quarters ended June 30, 2004, and March 31, 2004.”
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