Freddie Mac May Get Risk-Sharing Notes Rated as Lessons Learned

Freddie Mac may seek credit ratings in the next offering of the firm’s new securities sharing its mortgage-default risks with investors, as it learns from the first issue and plans for another later this year.

The lack of grades on $500 million of notes sold this week “definitely detracted from a further breadth in the investor base,” Kevin Palmer, a vice president of costing and portfolio management at the government-controlled mortgage-finance company, said in a telephone interview.