Fannie Mae Says Two Top Execs Step Down By Mark Felsenthal WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae (FNM.N: Quote , Profile , Research ) confirmed late on Tuesday that embattled Chief Executive Franklin Raines and Chief Financial Officer Timothy Howard were stepping down after accounting errors that are expected to force a massive earnings restatement. The two executives' departures follow months of high drama about Fannie Mae's operating methods that came to a head last week when the Securities and Exchange Commission determined the company would have to correct substantial errors in its financial reports. The magnitude of the errors, though not yet clear, was expected to be valued in the billions of dollars and prompted the company's regulator to say it was working on a capital restoration plan as part of planned reforms at Fannie Mae. Raines, a former Clinton administration budget director renowned for his close ties to Capitol Hill lawmakers, said he was fulfilling his promise to hold himself to account if regulators agreed there were significant mistakes in his company's accounting. The 55-year-old Raines grew up in humble circumstances in Seattle, but became a Harvard-trained investment banker on Wall Street and was touted as a possible Treasury secretary if Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry had won last month's election. "By my early retirement, I have held myself accountable," said Raines, who has led Fannie Mae for almost six years and achieved prominence as a politically astute leader of one of the nation's largest companies, which has been under intense scrutiny for most of his tenure. Fannie Mae announced a brace of interim leaders to guide the company through a transition period. The board named Daniel Mudd, currently chief operating officer, as interim chief executive. It picked Robert Levin, now an executive vice president, as interim chief financial officer. TEMPORARY LEADERS NAMED As part of the purge, Fannie Mae board members dismissed independent auditor KPMG and said they were looking for a new auditor. Louisiana Republican Rep. Richard Baker, a long-standing critic of Fannie Mae and its sister mortgage finance enterprise Freddie Mac (FRE.N: Quote , Profile , Research ) , commended the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) for forcing the management changes but suggested it was just the beginning of a needed course correction for the company. "Moving forward, I hope Fannie's board will take a long hard look at changing the corporate culture to one that makes a greater effort at managing financial risk than it does at fighting political risk," said Baker, who chairs a House Financial Services panel with oversight over Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and OFHEO, their regulator.     Continued ... Quelle "Fannie Mae Says Two Top Execs Step Down" : reuters.com Main page for "Fannie Mae Says Two Top Execs Step Down"