NEW YORK – The Board of Directors of GMAC Financial Services (GMAC) today named Michael A. Carpenter, a board member with extensive financial services experience, chief executive officer. The board has given Carpenter the responsibility to accelerate the strategic and operational changes necessary to focus GMAC on its core auto finance and related businesses.
Franklin W. Hobbs, GMAC chairman, said, "Mike Carpenter is a world-class CEO, and the board has great confidence that he is the right leader for GMAC at this pivotal moment. GMAC will benefit from Mike's broad and deep experience in banking, capital markets, turnarounds and corporate strategy. In addition, as a GMAC board member, he has first-hand knowledge of GMAC and the challenges and opportunities the company faces in its drive to return to sustained profitability and to repay taxpayers."
Carpenter succeeds Alvaro de Molina, who has resigned as CEO and a director. Carpenter, 62, has served on the GMAC board since May 2009. His previous experience includes CEO positions at Citigroup's Global Corporate & Investment Bank, Salomon Smith Barney, Travelers Life & Annuity and Kidder Peabody. During his 35-year career, Carpenter has also held senior positions at GE Capital, General Electric and Boston Consulting Group.
"I am honored by the opportunity to lead GMAC at this critical juncture," Carpenter said, pledging to work with a sense of urgency to make GMAC the premier provider of auto finance and related services for both dealers and consumers across the country.
Carpenter noted that the challenges facing GMAC are substantial, but he expressed confidence that the company and its leadership have the resolve, talent and vision to restore its fiscal health and build on its unique franchise.
"A renewed GMAC is crucial to business and public sector efforts to bolster the U.S. auto industry, and we have a special obligation to the public to do everything we can to ensure GMAC succeeds," Carpenter said. His mission, he noted, includes operating GMAC "at the rigorous standards required of a bank holding company, resolving the difficult issues we face with the mortgage business, and repaying in full the funds the U.S. government has invested in GMAC."
The board of GMAC has requested that the U.S. Department of the Treasury postpone its decision on the planned follow-on investment of Troubled Asset Relief Program funds in GMAC until Carpenter and the management of GMAC have assessed the current situation and can advise the board and Treasury regarding the appropriate amount and form of such funding.
Carpenter has resigned from the board of CIT Group in order to devote his full attention to his new role at GMAC.
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