Inman

Another Fannie Mae board member resigns

Fannie Mae on Friday announced the second board member to resign from the company within the last two months, media reports said.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Fannie Mae said that board member Donald Marron will resign from the board of directors, effective July 31.

Marron is chairman and CEO of private equity firm Lightyear Capital and joined Fannie Mae’s board in 2001, according to Reuters.

Fannie Mae was chartered by Congress to ensure a constant flow of funds in the nation’s housing markets. The company buys mortgages and repackages and sells them to investors.

The mortgage giant has been in the spotlight since its federal regulator released a report in 2004 exposing accounting errors that caused the company to restate earnings. Several of the company’s top executives have since resigned.

The announcement of Marron’s departure comes a month after the release of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report, which provided a detailed analysis of an $11 billion accounting scandal at Fannie Mae. The report blamed Fannie’s board of directors for failing to act independently, and said that employees massaged earnings to meet expectations and trigger bonuses for executives.

Fannie Mae on May 19 said that board member Thomas Gerrity would step down as the audit committee chairman and leave the board by the end of the year. Gerrity had been a Fannie Mae board member since 1991, according to media reports.