By: John E. Fitzgibbon, Jr.

While Washington has been working overtime to bail out Wall Street from its binge on mortgage debt, some people in the IPO market have come up with a novel way to play “cover your Fannie.” In this case, a new real estate investment trust, or REIT, plans to go public this week and use the proceeds to invest in mortgage securities backed by Fannie Mae, the largest U.S. buyer of home loans, or its slightly smaller rival, Freddie Mac, or their lower profile “cousin,” Ginnie Mae.