Treasury May Lend More Money to GMAC

The Treasury Department is prepared to lend roughly $7 billion to GMAC Financial Services, the parent company of the nation's sixth largest residential servicer, according to published reports. At press time both Treasury and GMAC officials were not commenting on the matter. Wire reports say such a loan would be a step toward making GMAC a quasi-federal company. GMAC has already received $5 billion in TARP funds and needs to raise an additional $11.5 billion in equity within six months. GMAC is a bank holding company. It recently changed the name of its depository to Ally Bank from GMAC Bank. Ally makes warehouse lines of credit to non-depository mortgage firms. Over the past year GMAC has closed the retail branch arm of its Residential Capital Corp. affiliate and exited the wholesale channel. Over the past year ResCap's owned servicing portfolio has fallen by 20% to $365 billion in housing receivables, according to the Quarterly Data Report. The government now owns 5 million shares of GMAC and recently told the lender that it must extend financing to bankrupt Chrysler Corp.