In August, Cleary Gottlieb represented the underwriters, including Barclays, Citadel, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, JP Morgan Chase, Mizuho, Morgan Stanley, Nomura, RBC, RBS, UBS and Wells Fargo, in 33 Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed transactions, representing more than $27 billion of mortgage-backed securities. This activity brings total agency mortgage-backed deals handled by the firm in 2010 to more than $143 billion.
In general, the “agency” transactions involve the issuance of mortgage-backed securities, in each case guaranteed by Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae or Ginnie Mae. Ginnie Mae is part of the U.S. government, while Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are government-sponsored, publicly-owned companies. In each transaction, the underlying assets were residential mortgage loans. The cash flows on these mortgages support the issuance of securities. The securities were issued in multiple classes.