Gmac Mortgage Corp

GMAC posted a $724-million fourth-quarter loss Tuesday as more than 1 in 10 homeowners with GMAC mortgages fell behind on payments. The loss contrasts with a profit of $1 billion a year earlier, said the Detroit-based auto and mortgage lending company that is 49% owned by General Motors Corp. GMAC is talking to potential buyers about parts of its Residential Capital mortgage unit, which had a $921-million loss in the quarter. Auto finance profit slid 77% as sales declined.

GMAC, the financing arm of General Motors Corp., is taking steps to become a bank holding company, potentially giving it greater access to the government's $700-billion financial bailout package, according to sources familiar with the matter. The lender, 49% owned by GM, is currently regulated as an industrial bank by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Bonds of mortgage and auto lender GMAC rallied Wednesday after Citigroup Inc. agreed to lend $21.4 billion to the company, which is owned by General Motors Corp. and Cerberus Capital Management. The support enables Detroit-based GMAC to finance new loans after the worst housing slump in 16 years has reduced the company's access to credit and caused losses of more than $1.15 billion at its Residential Capital home-loan unit.

Residential Capital, the mortgage unit of GMAC Financial Services, said Wednesday that it would eliminate 3,000 jobs, or 25% of its workforce, to cope with the housing downturn. The lender, known as ResCap, is the second-largest independent U.S. issuer of home loans, after Countrywide Financial Corp. The company said the cuts would include administrative and managerial positions and be concentrated in businesses that had suffered most from lower lending volumes.

Hedge fund Cerberus Capital Management and Citigroup Inc. have teamed up to bid for a controlling stake in General Motors Corp.'s GMAC financial services unit, people familiar with the situation said. A second team of bidders includes Wachovia Corp. and private equity firm Blackstone Group, the people said. Other private equity firms also have toyed with the idea of joining the bidding, other sources said previously. No decision on a GMAC deal was imminent, sources said over the weekend.

GMAC, the lender partly owned by General Motors Corp., is telling some GM dealers that it no longer will provide them with financing to buy vehicles because of its own reduced funding, according to letters sent to the retailers. Some dealers also are being told that they will have to start repaying such loans after vehicles have been on lots for at least 180 days, according to one of the three letters. A GMAC spokeswoman declined to confirm them. GMAC has posted $4.5 billion in losses in the last four quarters.

GMAC, the ailing financing arm of General Motors Corp., posted its fifth straight loss and said its mortgage unit might not survive. The third-quarter net loss widened to a record $2.52 billion from $1.6 billion a year earlier, the Detroit company said. Revenue declined 43% to $1.72 billion. The Residential Capital home-loan unit lost $1.9 billion during the quarter, and GMAC's auto finance business lost $294 million. GMAC was crushed by slumps in the housing market, where foreclosures are running at record levels, and in auto sales, which GM labeled the worst since 1945 when it reported October results this week.

GMAC, the auto and home lender that received a $6-billion government bailout, reported a first-quarter loss Tuesday of $675 million in part on surging loan defaults. The loss widened from $589 million a year earlier, the Detroit-based company said. The percentage of auto loans more than 30 days past due rose to 3.1% in the quarter from 2.4% in the same period a year earlier. "We're at the highest retail credit loss that the auto industry has seen in recorded time," Chief Financial Officer Robert Hull said.

Bella Terra, a Huntington Beach mall undergoing a large-scale renovation, has been sold for $228 million to San Jose real estate investment advisor DJM Capital Partners Inc. and Pennsylvania lender GMAC Institutional Advisors. The 778,000-square-foot center at the intersection of Edinger Avenue and Beach Boulevard was sold by developers Ezralow Co. of Calabasas and J.H. Snyder Co. of Los Angeles. Those companies have nearly completed a $170-million makeover.

General Motors Corp.'s GMAC financial services unit has agreed to sell as much as $20 billion in U.S. auto loans to Scotia Capital, the corporate and investment banking arm of the Bank of Nova Scotia. The agreement will allow GMAC to redeploy its assets into its more lucrative mortgage and insurance businesses.