Fannie Mae Hires GE Capital Exec as COO

Fannie Mae, the No. 1 buyer of U.S. mortgages, said it hired Daniel Mudd, president and chief executive at GE Capital Corp. in Japan, as chief operating officer and vice chairman. Mudd, 41, replaces Lawrence Small, the former president and COO, who left the firm in January to run the Smithsonian Institution. “Dan Mudd’s extensive experience in the international capital markets makes him ideally suited to helping run the company that is the principal link between those capital markets and the financing of homes throughout the United States,” said Franklin Raines, chairman and chief executive of Fannie Mae. Mudd had been with GE Capital, a unit of General Electric Co. and the world’s largest non-bank finance company, since 1991. He was named president of the finance unit’s Japanese arm in 1996.