Description
Ally Financial is a bank holding company organized in Delaware and headquartered in Detroit, Michigan. The company provides financial services including car finance, online banking via a direct bank, corporate lending, vehicle insurance, mortgage loans, and an electronic trading platform to trade financial assets.
Ally is one of the largest car finance companies in the U.S., providing car financing and leasing for 4.5 million customers and originating 1.4 million car loans annually. It is on the list of largest banks in the United States by assets and has 2.0 million depositors. Its electronic trading platform has approximately 350,000 funded accounts. Via its SmartAuction online marketplace for auto auctions, launched in 2000, the company has sold more than 5 million vehicles, including 270,000 vehicles sold in 2019.
The company was known as GMAC, an acronym for General Motors Acceptance Corporation, until 2010.
History
The company was founded in 1919 by General Motors (GM) as the General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) to provide financing to automotive customers.[5] In 1939, the company founded Motors Insurance Corporation and entered the vehicle insurance market.
In 1985, while GM was under the leadership of Roger Smith, who sought to diversify the company, GMAC formed GMAC Mortgage and acquired Colonial Mortgage as well as the servicing arm of Norwest Mortgage, which included an $11 billion mortgage portfolio.
In 1991, the company was forced to write-off $275 million in bad debt as part of a $436 million loss suffered from fraud committed by John McNamara, who ran a Ponzi scheme.
In 1998, the company formed GMAC Real Estate. In 1999, GMAC Mortgage acquired Ditech. In 2000, the company formed GMAC Bank, a direct bank. In 2005, the company formed GMAC ResCap as a holding company for its mortgage operations.
In 2006, General Motors sold a 51% interest in GMAC to Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm. Also that year, GMAC sold a controlling interest of GMAC Commercial Holdings (its real estate division renamed Capmark) to Goldman Sachs, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and Five Mile Capital Partners. GMAC Real Estate was sold to Brookfield Asset Management. In 2009, Capmark filed for bankruptcy and its North American loan origination and servicing business was acquired by Berkadia, a joint venture of Leucadia National and Berkshire Hathaway.
On December 24, 2008, the Federal Reserve accepted the company's application to become a bank holding company. In January 2009, the company closed Nuvell Financial Services, its subprime lending division.
As a result of losses in GMAC ResCap, the United States Department of the Treasury invested $17.2 billion in the company in 2008–2009. The Treasury sold its last stake in the company in 2014, recovering $19.6 billion from its $17.2 billion investment.
In May 2009 GMAC Bank was rebranded as Ally Bank. In May 2010, GMAC re-branded itself as Ally Financial. In September 2010, the company sold its resort finance business to Centerbridge Partners. In 2012, the company sold its Canadian banking operations to Royal Bank of Canada for $3.8 billion. In April 2014, it became a public company via an initial public offering. In 2015, it moved its headquarters to One Detroit Center, which was subsequently renamed Ally Detroit Center. In June 2016, the company acquired TradeKing, a stockbrokerage, for $275 million, which was re-branded as Ally Invest.
In May 2016, Ally Bank re-entered the mortgage business with the launch of its direct-to-consumer offering called Ally Home. In April 2019, Ally Home partnered with Better.com to launch a digital mortgage platform.
In 2016, the company began occupancy at Ally Charlotte Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.
