Ally

The company was founded in 1919 by General Motors as the General Motors Acceptance Corporation to provide financing to automotive customers. 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 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 April 2009 the bank announced plans to move its Charlotte office from Ballantyne to 106,525 square feet on four floors of 440 South Church, with possible expansion later. At the time, the bank had 265 Charlotte employees in three business units.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 October 2019 Ally announced completion of its acquisition of Health Credit Services . HCS is a technology-focused patient financing company that is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.On May 3, 2021 Ally Charlotte Center officially the bank occupies 725,000 square of the building and is the only office tenant of the building. All 2,100 Charlotte-based employees and contractors will relocate to the new building from other Charlotte offices, which includes 440 South Church, 11605 N. Community House Road, WeWork space at 128 S. Tryon St, 1401 W. Morehead St, and 2101 Rexford Road. Ally will move into the building in phases as determined by teams.In December of 2021, Ally acquired Fair Square Financial, a credit card company, for $750 million and subsequently rebranded the subsidiary and product as Ally Credit Card.