The story
1919–1990
The company was founded in 1919 by General Motors (GM) as the General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) 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.
1991–2009
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 (its real estate division renamed Capmark) 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, a subsidiary of the company, 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 (9,896.5 m2) on four floors of 440 South Church, with possible expansion later. At the time, the bank had 265 Charlotte employees in three business units.
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In May 2009, GMAC Bank was rebranded as Ally Bank.
2010–2019
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.
Ally re-entered the mortgage business in May 2016 but stopped making new mortgage loans in January 2025.
In October 2019, Ally acquired Health Credit Services, which provided financing for healthcare treatments. It was sold to Synchrony Financial in March 2024.
2020–present
On May 3, 2021, Ally began occupying 725,000 square feet at Ally Charlotte Center.
In December 2021, Ally acquired Fair Square Financial, a credit card company, for $750 million. It was sold to CardWorks in April 2025.
From Wikipedia’s article on Ally Financial, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.6