Wed Jul 21, 2004

WASHINGTON, July 21 (Reuters) - The No. 1 U.S. mortgage finance provider, Fannie Mae, said on Wednesday it could eliminate scheduled debt issues in the future without explaining why.

Fannie Mae (FNM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) officials, speaking to investors in a conference call, said the company might again forego a scheduled debt issue, as it did last week, because management wants "greater flexibility" in funding strategies.

"Hopefully by making that clear to everybody, we have reduced the level of questioning that may arise whenever we chose to pass on a callable benchmark, which we've done in the past, or a non-callable benchmark. Now our our practice going forward won't be to address specific reasons for passing, we'll just pass and let the market react to that," a Fannie Mae official said.

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