ATLANTA, May 21 (Reuters) - It could take four to five years to raise the capital needed to privatize mortgage giant Freddie Mac using a combination of retained earnings and a public offering of stock, Freddie Mac chief executive Donald Layton said on Tuesday.
With a target capital level of $50 billion, Layton told an Atlanta Federal Reserve conference that "you can talk about a baseline of retained earnings for four or five years and an IPO to get over the line." He added it would be hard to accelerate because of legal and other issues still to be resolved before the company can leave government conservatorship.
(Reporting by Howard Schneider Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
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