Fannie Mae finds more errors, names new CFO

WASHINGTON — Mortgage giant Fannie Mae, struggling to untangle its accounting in an $11 billion scandal, disclosed Thursday that new errors have been uncovered as it reached outside the company to hire a new finance chief.

The government-sponsored company, which finances one of every five home-mortgage loans in the United States, also named a new chief operating officer as it again missed a regulatory deadline for filing a financial report — this time for the third quarter. Fannie Mae hasn’t filed an earnings report since late last year.

The new chief financial officer, Robert T. Blakely, is executive vice president and CFO of MCI Inc., which emerged from bankruptcy following a multibillion-dollar accounting scandal at the former WorldCom Inc.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has ordered the company to restate earnings back to 2001, Fannie Mae affirmed previous estimates that the correction will total about $11 billion. The company said it likely will not complete the reworking of its accounting before the second half of next year.

Fannie Mae also disclosed new accounting problems that have been uncovered in several areas, including recording losses on mortgages and the mortgage-backed securities it guarantees as well as expenses for financing some real estate investments and accounting for low-income housing tax credits and mortgage insurance. The company did not provide an estimate of the amounts of the errors.