NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - In another sign of the firms' financial disintegration, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the giant mortgage finance companies operating in government conservatorship, said Wednesday they are delisting their common and preferred stocks from the New York Stock Exchange.
Freddie /quotes/comstock/13*!fre/quotes/nls/fre (FRE 0.75, -0.47, -38.28%) said in a press release that, "this notice was made pursuant to a directive by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Freddie Mac's conservator, requiring Freddie Mac to delist its common and preferred securities from the NYSE."
According to a press release by FHFA, the agency issued similar directives to both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae /quotes/comstock/13*!fnm/quotes/nls/fnm (FNM 0.56, -0.36, -39.15%) .
Freddie said it expects its shares to trade in the over-the-counter bulletin board market after the delisting. The delisting should occur around July 8, the firm said.
Shortly after Freddie's announcement, Fannie Mae said that it too is delisting its common and preferred shares from the New York Stock Exchange and the Chicago Stock Exchange after being told to take the move by its regulator.
Shares of both firms fell about 40% Wednesday.
The U.S. government established Fannie Mae in 1938 to make mortgages more available to low income families. In 1979, the government created Freddie Mac, to expand the market for mortgages in the country.
Both firms were put into government conservatorship in September 2008, after the U.S. housing market collapsed, triggering the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Greg Morcroft is MarketWatch's financial editor in New York.
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