gmac

Ally Bank, Formally Known as GMAC, to Pay Fannie Mae $462 Million Over Bad Mortgages, BoA Sued by Allstate

GMAC, who changed their name to Ally Financial, is paying Fannie Mae $462 million to dump off their bad mortgages.

Ally Financial Inc, the lender formerly known as GMAC, on Monday said it agreed to pay $462 million to Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB) to avoid having to repurchase poorly underwritten mortgages sold to the housing finance giant.

Ally, which is majority-owned by U.S. taxpayers, said the agreement releases its Residential Capital LLC mortgage unit from any liability related to bad underwriting on $292 billion worth of loans sold to Fannie Mae, itself about 80 percent owned by the government.

Residential Capital owns GMAC Mortgage and Ditech Funding.

Ally, which is expected to go public next year, announced a smaller settlement with Freddie Mac (FMCC.OB) in March. Resolving questions about its potential liability could help Ally attract investors.

The lender, which is 56 percent owned by the U.S. government, said the agreements reduce the risk in its mortgage operations going forward.

Nice huh? Fannie Mae absorbs $292 billion worth of bad loans for less than half a billion dollars? According to the Wall Street Journal, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were demanding banks pay back bad mortgage loans when banks violated their mortgage purchase agreements.

Fannie and Freddie collected more than $9 billion from banks during the first three quarters of the year. At the end of September, another $13 billion in requests hadn’t been paid, including more than $4 billion that have been outstanding for more than four months.

We now own GMAC

Consider it the last bailout of 2009.

The federal government said Wednesday that it will take majority control of troubled auto lender GMAC and provide an additional $3.8 billion in aid to the company, which has been unable to raise from private investors the money it needs to staunch its losses.
The Treasury Department has said for months that GMAC would need more federal money, but the decision to increase the government's ownership stake came as a surprise, cutting against the grain of the Obama administration's recent efforts to wind down its bailout of large banks...
Treasury said that it will increase its stake in GMAC to 56 percent from 35 percent. The government also will hold about $14 billion in what amounts to loans that GMAC may eventually repay. The government plans to appoint four of the company's nine directors.

Auto bailout has already helped GMAC and GM sales

Emptywheel has looked closely at the numbers for December auto sales, and reaches a startling conclusion:

While GM and Ford still lost more sales across the year than Toyota and Honda (because they also tanked during the gas price crash of the summer), their performance against Toyota and Honda more recently demonstrates the degree to which recent sales are a credit driven issue, and not what Richard Shelby likes to claim is a failed business model. . . .

Both the Prius and the Tundra had worse than average declines last month, with the Tundra down 52% and the Prius down 45%. This isn't about gas prices anymore--it's about money.

What's in a Name? Fed Approves GMAC to become "bank"

It's all the rage to turn your corporate entity into a bank in order to get access to the TARP financial bail out money.

Fed Approves GMAC Request to Become a Bank:

In a 4 to 1 vote, the Federal Reserve Board approved GMAC’s application to transform itself into a bank holding company “in light of the unusual and exigent circumstances” affecting the financial markets. The move will allow GMAC to tap as much as $6 billion in government bailout money. The approval came as GMAC bondholders were facing a Friday deadline to vote to approve a complex transaction that would significantly reduce the company’s outstanding debt.