Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE) today announced that it has taken steps to provide more lenders with access to tools that will empower them to further streamline the mortgage process, reduce origination costs and seamlessly integrate their processes with those of mortgage investors. Through the acquisition of the Tuttle Decision Systems (TDS) applications from Microsoft's former subsidiary, HomeAdvisor Technologies, Inc., Freddie Mac will soon offer mortgage lenders of all sizes technologies that will enable them to provide on-line mortgage services on their own websites.

Freddie Mac played a leading role in defining and deploying the TDS technologies which power Gold Cash Xtra(r), the company's cash-based mortgage purchase process. For over 5 years, Freddie Mac has licensed the technologies it is now formally acquiring, first from Tuttle Decision Systems and subsequently from Microsoft, as part of a technology alliance announced last year.

Microsoft had earlier made a decision to exit the mortgage technology field in order to focus on its real estate businesses. Microsoft will continue to own and operate the popular MSN HomeAdvisor Website as well as Realty Desktop, the Internet-based transaction management platform it currently offers to the real estate industry. In addition, Microsoft will separately sell off the TDS subsidiary, Tuttle Risk Management Services Inc. (TRMS), which will not be acquired by Freddie Mac.

Microsoft's search for a strategic buyer that would ensure the continuing development and broad dissemination of the mortgage technology culminated in the transaction with Freddie Mac. "We will continue to improve the TDS technologies and will empower as many lenders as possible to take advantage of that technology," Maselli said. "Small lenders in particular will benefit from our ability to make this technology available quickly, broadly and at an affordable cost."

TDS will function under all the same operating restrictions and with the same regulatory oversight as does Freddie Mac. Freddie Mac's charter prohibits the corporation from originating mortgage loans. TDS's sole business is the development and distribution of mortgage software for lenders and for mortgage investors. TDS does not originate mortgage loans, and TDS will now operate under Freddie Mac's charter prohibitions.

Freddie Mac is a stockholder-owned corporation established by Congress in 1970 to support homeownership and rental housing. Freddie Mac purchases single-family and multifamily residential mortgages and mortgage-related securities, which it finances primarily by issuing mortgage passthrough securities and debt instruments in the capital markets. Over the years, Freddie Mac has opened the doors for one in six homebuyers and more than two million renters across America. Additional information may be found on the company's website, www.freddiemac.com.

Published: April 19, 2001

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