WASHINGTON (AFP) - Fannie Mae, one of the government-sponsored mortgage finance giants facing trouble from the housing meltdown, announced a shakeup of key management Wednesday while keeping its chief executive.

CEO Daniel Mudd said the changes, effective immediately, would help "implement the company's recently announced capital management and credit loss reduction plan."

He said Peter Niculescu was named chief business officer, David Hisey as chief financial officer and Michael Shaw as chief risk officer.

"After setting forth our capital and credit plan August 8, we are now putting a senior management structure in place to drive this plan across the company," Mudd said.

"This team will be responsible for meeting the dual objectives of conserving capital and controlling credit losses while Fannie Mae continues to provide crucial liquidity to the US housing and mortgage markets. As we move through the bottom of this cycle, maintaining capital, managing credit and driving revenues are the priorities -- and we have to organize and staff accordingly."

Fannie Mae, which along with sibling Freddie Mac provides liquidity to the housing market by buying mortgages that back bonds sold to investors, posted a loss of 2.3 billion dollars in the second quarter as it wrote off 3.7 billion dollars in bad debts.

Its shares have fallen some 90 percent over the past year but this week are up some 30 percent.

A law enacted in July allows the government to take a stake or provide credit to the shareholder-owned firm chartered by Congress to help keep money flowing in the mortgage markets.

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