All Systems Go for an Ally IPO?

It's no secret that the Treasury would like to unload all, or most, of its stake in Ally Financial this year and until recently it looked as though its chances of a successful IPO were about 50-50. (It's one thing to sell a company, it's another to unload it at a fire sale price.)  But now that rates are falling again, the chances of an IPO are looking better. Unlike some banks, Ally has been aggressively unloading its REO and cleaning up its balance sheet as best it can. Of course, investors will be concerned about two things: the fact that this "bank" has no real retail branches to speak of, and is heavily dependent on TV and Internet ads for deposits. (Then again, maybe that's not so bad.) The other big concern is its residential servicing portfolio and how much the asset value of those MSRs count toward the bank's capital base. (National Mortgage News wrote about this a few weeks back.) A barometer of an Ally IPO may very well be the upcoming IPO of Provident Funding's REIT. Provident is a nonbank, privately held mortgage firm based in Burlingame Calif. Stay tuned…