GMAC considers moving headquarters to Charlotte

February 21, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

DETROIT (AP) — General Motors Corp.’s financing arm may move its corporate headquarters to Charlotte, N.C., but a spokeswoman says no decision has been made.

GMAC Financial Services LLC has been headquartered in Detroit for the past 25 years, and spokeswoman Toni Simonetti said Friday there is no plan to change that at present.

Even if there were a move, the company would keep its auto finance business in Detroit, where it now employs about 1,500 people, and it would keep other “corporate center” operations in New York, near Philadelphia and in Charlotte, she said.

Charlotte is where CEO Alvaro de Molina lives, but Simonetti said previous CEOs have lived in New York but kept the headquarters in Detroit.

The auto finance and mortgage company has about 200 people in Charlotte now, but that is growing because GMAC recently became a bank holding company and is hiring people with banking expertise who are readily available in Charlotte, she said.

The Detroit News reported Friday that Charlotte is trying to recruit GMAC’s headquarters to the southern financial center.

De Molina joined GMAC in 2007 after 17 years with Charlotte-based Bank of America Corp.

GM in January said that it increased its stake in GMAC to about 60 percent.

GM had previously held a 49 percent stake in GMAC LLC, with the remaining 51 percent held by New York-based private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP.

As part of the federal bailout for GMAC approved late last year, the financing company received $5 billion from the government’s $700 billion bank rescue package.

In addition, Treasury also said it would lend GM up to $1 billion so that the automaker could buy additional equity offered by GMAC as part of its effort to raise more capital.