Marcie Belles's Blog – December 2009 Archive (18)

GMAC Top Auto Finance Newsmaker of 2009

For GMAC, 2009 has been a tough year. Most notably, the mega-financier assumed financing for former rival Chrysler Financial, while battling severe losses and requiring federal aid to stay afloat.

Here’s a look at the top GMAC news events of 2009, culled from AutoFinanceNews.net.

• GMAC Shuts Down Nuvell, National (January 7)

•… Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 31, 2009 at 12:37pm — No Comments

Government Takes Control of GMAC With New Infusion

Unable to obtain the necessary funds from private investors to bolster reserves against unexpected losses, GMAC has secured another $3.8 billion in capital from the federal government.

To date, the Treasury Department has pumped $16.3 billion into the former General Motors captive — enough for a 56% stake. Now the government gets to appoint four of the company's nine directors.

GMAC, which was granted bank-holding-company status in December 2008, was one of 19 banks to… Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 31, 2009 at 12:00pm — No Comments

Crescent Bank Smacked With Lawsuit

Crescent Bank & Trust has been sued for allegedly imposing unauthorized interest, fees, and penalties on its auto loan customers. Essentially, the lawsuit contends that the fees assessed exceeded the terms authorized by the loan agreements.

The case, dubbed Joseph vs. Crescent Bank & Trust, is pending in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Ga. The plaintiff’s attorney is Matthew C. Klase, a partner at Webb, Klase & Lemond LLC.

Is the litigation spigot opening?… Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 30, 2009 at 2:30pm — 6 Comments

Chrysler’s Leasing Crutch

With three months of more cautious leasing under its belt after a yearlong hiatus, Chrysler is ready to step up its efforts. The goal: to have leasing generate 10% of sales in the next six to eight months, up from 7% of sales now.

Using November sales as an example, Chrysler is aiming for 6,356 leases by 3Q10, compared with 4,449 currently. That’s an increase of 43%, which seems pretty aggressive to me.

Chrysler vehicle sales have been battered this year, plunging 25% in… Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 29, 2009 at 12:21pm — 5 Comments

Car-Shopping App for iPhones

Nationwide Insurance debuted Cartopia, an app for the iPhone and iPod Touch that offers vehicle safety, pricing, and payment information to car shoppers.

Nationwide teamed up with Experian Automotive, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and IntelliChoice to provide used-vehicle history scores, trade-in values, and payment calculators. Consumers can even use the app to apply for auto loans or to request insurance quotes.

Another neat feature: Car shoppers can add… Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 22, 2009 at 12:00pm — No Comments

Residual Perception

Ford is prepping an ad campaign to tout its vehicles’ residual values.

For years, trade-in values for Ford cars were hurt by hefty discounts and fleet sales. Now that the manufacturer has better aligned inventory levels with demand, those resale values are climbing. According to recent data from Automotive Lease Guide and RL Polk, the average residual value on a three-year old 2010 Ford car or truck will be $1,310 higher than for a 2009 model. The reasons: improved quality, new… Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 21, 2009 at 12:30pm — 3 Comments

GM Inks Deal for Auto Finance in India

General Motors India has tapped State Bank of India to provide wholesale and retail financing to buyers of GM vehicles. The announcement comes on the heels of a move by GM two weeks ago to launch a joint venture in India with Chinese partner Shanghai Automotive Industries Corp.

SBI is the largest bank in India, with 12,150 branches throughout the country. In October, SBI financed 22,000 of the 132,615 cars sold, according to published reports — a 17% share.

And last month,… Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 18, 2009 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Will the Credit Union Bonanza End?

Credit unions have handily captured volume in recent months while banks and captives cut back auto lending operations. Ypsilanti, Mich.-based Community Driven Credit Union, for instance, has originated $10.5 million of auto loans this year, up from its norm of $3 million. And Peoria, Ill.-based Citizens Equity First Credit Union accounted for 22% of the auto loans in a 15-county area in central Illinois — more than the next five lenders combined. Multiply those figures by 8,000 credit unions… Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 17, 2009 at 1:44pm — 6 Comments

Invitation to Participate in the Auto Finance Forecast

Every quarter AutoFinanceNews.net and sister publication Auto Finance News conduct the Auto Finance Forecast, which gauges activities and sentiments in the automotive lending and leasing market. We invite your participation here. Results will be made public at in Auto Finance News and on AutoFinanceNews.net.

Those who respond by Dec. 18 will receive a detailed report of the results in advance of their… Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 11, 2009 at 10:30am — No Comments

Tracking the Underbanked

More than one quarter of U.S. households — equal to about 60 million people — are unbanked or underbanked, according to a survey by the Federal Insurance Deposit Corp.

Specifically, 7.7% of households, or 17 million adults, nationwide were unbanked. Another 17.9% — 43 million adults — were found to be underbanked.

Households were identified as unbanked if they answered "no" to the question: "Do you or does anyone in your household currently have a checking or savings… Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 10, 2009 at 12:30pm — 1 Comment

Report: Government Expects to Lose $30 Billion on Auto Bailout

The data is in, and the outlook is dreary.

The Obama administration is scheduled to tell Congress tomorrow that it expects to lose $30 billion of the $82 billion it invested in General Motors and Chrysler as part of a plan to salvage the auto industry.

To read the complete article in The Detroit News, click… Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 8, 2009 at 2:30pm — 1 Comment

A Different Kind of Warehouse Lending

Membership has its privileges.

Now members of Sam’s Club, the warehouse retailer division of Wal-Mart Stores, can qualify for 0% financing and special lease terms on select 2009 and 2010 Mitsubishis. The offer is a link-up between Mitsubishi Motors Credit of America and the Sam’s Club Auto Buying Program.

Here are the details:

Sam’s Club members can qualify for special low lease payments on the redesigned 2010 Outlander and the all-new 2010 Lancer Sportback, or… Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 8, 2009 at 2:00pm — No Comments

BHPH Dealers Face Heightened Scrutiny From Funders

HOUSTON — Rates are low, but capital is scarce.

To secure the limited funds, buy-here, pay-here dealers will have to improve operational efficiency, develop more detailed loan-performance reports, and forge stronger bonds with their lenders in order to survive in 2010.

“We all know that capital is the gasoline that goes in the tank in BHPH,” said Ken Shilson, president of Shilson, Goldberg, Cheung & Associates LLP, a Houston-based CPA firm specializing in the BHPH… Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 8, 2009 at 1:00pm — 3 Comments

Whitacre Shakes Up GM Management — Again

Three days after Fritz Henderson resigned as chief executive of General Motors, a second round of management changes has been announced at the troubled automaker. Among them: Vice Chairman Bob Lutz will return to a role designing new products, rather than heading up marketing. Lutz filled in for Henderson two days ago at the L.A. Auto Show.

These are the other personnel changes:

• Mark Reuss will be president of GM's North American operations

• Susan Docherty will… Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 4, 2009 at 11:00am — 3 Comments

Beige Book Points to Higher Auto Sales

Economic conditions are on the mend, and new- and used-vehicle sales have started to pick up.

That was the word from the 12 Federal Reserve Districts as indicated in the Beige Book report released yesterday.

In all, eight districts reported some increase in activity or improvement in conditions. The remaining four indicated that conditions had either changed little or were mixed. The 12 districts are Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago,… Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 3, 2009 at 12:00pm — No Comments

Henderson Resigns as GM Chief

After eight months on the job, Fritz Henderson has stepped down as chief executive of General Motors. Board Chairman Ed Whitacre Jr., appointed in June, will replace Henderson on an interim basis.

Formerly GM’s chief operating officer, Henderson managed the company through its 40-day bankruptcy proceeding and streamlined the automaker’s offerings to four core brands. He joined GM in 1984.…

Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 1, 2009 at 5:24pm — 3 Comments

GMAC Servicing Unit to Shed 13% of Tenn. Staff

GMAC subsidiary Semperian LLC will lay off 45 employees in its Knoxville, Tenn., office by yearend in a move to “reduce costs and gain efficiencies,” GMAC spokesman Mike Stoller told the Knoxville News Sentinel. About 300 employees will remain.

Loan-servicer Semperian has locations in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Oregon, and Texas. The Knoxville office, which opened in 2002, provides collection and customer support… Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 1, 2009 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Delinquency Gap Narrows

The auto loan delinquency rate climbed 8 basis points last quarter to 0.81%, but loan performance appears to have stabilized since lenders implemented stricter underwriting criteria in 2008.

The 60-day delinquency data was compiled by credit bureau TransUnion from a random sampling of 27 million individual credit files.

TransUnion expects fourth-quarter delinquencies to increase to nearly 0.9%, compared with 0.86% at yearend 2008. The uptick, though, is likely attributable… Continue

Added by Marcie Belles on December 1, 2009 at 2:30pm — 3 Comments