Alliance Battles to Save Fannie and Freddie
The investor Bruce R. Berkowitz is providing seed money for a new group that is running advertisements in newspapers and on television to support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage finance companies that lawmakers are trying to wind down.
Mr. Berkowitz’s Fairholme Capital Management mutual fund, which is an investor in both Fannie and Freddie, is a member of the coalition that is backing the group behind the ad campaign — United for American Homeownership, said a person briefed on the matter who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. This person also said that Fairholme provided seed money to the group.