On Thursday morning, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville announced that the San Francisco offices of the Federal National Mortgage Association, or Fannie Mae, would be relocated to Birmingham.
“This is an early Christmas present for the great people of Alabama,” Tuberville said in a video posted to his official social media accounts.
“Thanks to the leadership of President Trump and Federal Housing Director Bill Pulte, Fannie Mae is immediately leaving woke California for sweet home Alabama,” he continued. “Fannie Mae is one of the biggest mortgage financers in the world. Relocating Fannie Mae from San Francisco to Birmingham will not only save the taxpayers money, but it will bring jobs and opportunities to our state.”
“Birmingham used to be the financial capital of the South and this is an important step to making Birmingham boom again,” the senator noted.
Governor Kay Ivey also praised the announced move in a public statement Thursday night. “As I have long said Alabama is not California, and that is a good thing,” she wrote. “I could not be more excited for Fannie Mae’s move to Birmingham.”
Founded in 1938 as a New Deal program, Fannie Mae and its counterpart Freddie Mac purchase mortgages from banks in order to repackage and guarantee them. By increasing liquidity in the housing finance market, the two bodies help stabilize and reduce interest rates on mortgages.
As a consequence of their key roles in the national housing market, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are both two of the largest publicly traded companies in the United States.
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Both have also been under the conservatorship of the Federal Housing Finance Authority since the 2008 financial crisis. Fannie Mae Chairman William Pulte recently stated that the conservatorships would continue for the immediate future, despite ongoing plans in the Trump administration to sell $30 billion in shares of both companies.
In a press release issued yesterday by Senator Tuberville’s office, Pulte confirmed that “thanks to President Trump and our collaboration with and confidence in Senator Tuberville, Fannie Mae’s San Francisco Office will be relocating to Birmingham, Alabama.”
The Alabama Daily News reported that during a press call on Thursday morning, Senator Tuberville was unsure exactly how many jobs the move would bring to Alabama but said that the decision would impact “hundreds of jobs.”
The most recent annual report filed with the SEC by Fannie Mae stated that the company had approximately 8,200 employees last December, but the number of employees at their San Francisco offices does not appear to be publicly available. Fannie Mae did not respond to APR’s request for additional information on the move before time of publication.