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Reported Suicide Is Latest Shock at Freddie Mac
...Mr. Kellermann, who spent more than 16 years at Freddie Mac and saw his stock and options decline precipitously last year, was at the intersection of some of the most difficult issues facing the company. Last month the company’s chief executive, David M. Moffett, resigned in part, he said, because federal regulators were using Freddie Mac to carry out economic policy at the expense of nursing the publicly held company back to financial health. The company has not had a president since 2007.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which together own or back more than half of the home mortgages in the country, have been hobbled by skyrocketing loan defaults and have received a total of $60 billion in federal aid since they were taken over last fall.

Mr. Kellermann was also working in a poisonous political atmosphere. In addition to taking criticism over the bonuses, he was recently involved in tense conversations with the company’s federal regulator over its routine financial disclosures, according to people close to those discussions who also spoke on condition of anonymity. Freddie Mac executives wanted to emphasize to investors that they believed the company was being run to benefit the government, rather than shareholders. The company’s regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Authority, had pushed to play down that language. Freddie Mac reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that changes it had made in practices to help the government “have increased our expenses or caused us to forgo revenue opportunities.”...