Preliminary Staff Report: Government Sponsored Enterprises and the Financial Crisis Financial – Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) | April 7, 2010: “This preliminary staff report provides information on the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA or Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC or Freddie Mac), the companies’ attributes as government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), and their linkages to the larger financial system. As losses at the two companies mounted, the government placed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship on September 6, 2008. At that point the two GSEs together held in portfolio or guaranteed through mortgage-backed securities (MBS) some $5.2 trillion of mortgages,1 or over 40 percent of the $12 trillion residential mortgage market.”