FINalternatives- It’s not the first time “hedge fund” has been used as an epithet, but a former U.S. Treasury chief is using the H.F. words to describe mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The two firms, into which Treasury said yesterday it will inject billions of dollars in loans and investments, have been “arbitraging their lower borrowing costs that came about because of the implied status as government entities,” John Snow, who now serves as chairman of private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, told Bloomberg News.
“The business model they were using was really the model of a hedge fund,” he added.