Getting to know Mr. Phillips and his background is a worthwhile exercise, especially because he’s determining the Trump administration’s path forward on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giants that remain in conservatorship.
Mr. Phillips certainly knows a thing or two about Fannie and Freddie. As the leader of Morgan Stanley’s mortgage desk during the peak mortgage-mania years of 2004 and 2005, he ran the operation that bundled loans and sold them to the two government-sponsored enterprises. When those loans blew up and the government sued Morgan Stanley, Mr. Phillips was a named defendant in the initial case — a case that resulted in the firm paying a $1.25 billion settlement.
But first things first.
