Capital One, Freddie CEOs make Washington Post ranking
By MortgageDaily.com staff
6/28/2005

There were no shortage of mortgage executives among a recent ranking of the most highly compensated executives in the Washington, D.C., area last year.

The area's second highest-compensated executive -- and therefore the top in the mortgage industry -- last year was Richard Fairbank, chairman and CEO of Capital One Financial Corp. with value options and other assets worth over $29.5 million, the Washington Post reported. This year, Fairbanks' company acquired online mortgage and home equity lender eSmartloan and retail bank Hibernia Corp., which gave Capital One its first network of branches and marks the first time a credit card company has bought a banking institution. In the previous year's ranking, Fairbank's placed 13th.

This annual survey, 2004 Executive Compensation Report -- Top 100 in Total Compensation, reportedly ranked top executives of local companies that file executive compensation information with the Securities and Exchange Commission -- 764 executives from 157 companies for this survey, which is based on the latest fiscal year public data.

In the No. 8 spot was Freddie Mac's chairman and chief executive Richard F. Syron, whose worth of $15.6 million includes a $1.1 million salary and bonuses of $2.5 million, the Post said. Syron, who became head of the secondary lender in December 2003, was the third chief executive appointed in that year after the accounting scandal broke out at the year's beginning.

Emanuel Friedman, former cochairman and co-chief executive of Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group Inc., placed 18th on the list with compensation of $10.7 billion, $9.4 billion being bonus money and about $0.5 million being salary. Friedman, who was in charge of hedge fund investing for the real estate investment trust, announced in April his departure effective June 9, but reasons for his resignation were not disclosed. The SEC and the NASD were investigating the company's 2001 role in marketing shares of CompuDyne Corp. of Annapolis to a group of hedge funds, according to the Post.

Following at No. 19 was Friedman, Billing's president and chief operating officer Richard Hendrix with compensation of $9.6 million, consisting of $0.25 million salary and $6.6 million in bonuses.

Rounding out the top five highest paid industry executives was Eugene McQuade. The president and chief operating officer of Freddie Mac reportedly had compensation of $9.6 million with only about $1 million coming from salary and bonuses.

Other mortgage-related entity executives on the ranking included Thomas Fitzpatrick of Sallie Mae, Dwight Schar of homebuilder NVR Inc.

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