Reply #24: Atlanta competing for GMAC headquarters

[DemReadingDU]

3/13/09 Atlanta competing for GMAC headquarters

GMAC LLC is eyeing Atlanta for a major corporate relocation, according to commercial real estate brokers.

The 90-year-old financial services giant is reportedly considering moving its Detroit headquarters to Charlotte, N.C. GMAC CEO Al de Molina — a Bank of America veteran — and other executives live in the Queen City.

But Atlanta brokers say GMAC is also scouting Hotlanta for at least 250,000 square feet, or nearly 10 floors of office space.

GMAC would be a huge catch for Atlanta at a time when its financial sector has been decimated by layoffs and unemployment is edging closer to 9 percent. In Buckhead, Atlanta’s financial center, four new office towers are under construction.

“Atlanta has lots of new and inexpensive office space. Charlotte has some, too, but not quite as much as Atlanta,” said Mark Vitner, an economist with Charlotte-based Wachovia Corp.

“Charlotte does have plenty of bankers that GMAC would be able to hire quickly and not pay to relocate,” Vitner said.

GMAC was a subsidiary of General Motors Corp. until November 2006, when GM sold a majority interest in GMAC to FIM Holdings LLC, an investment consortium led by Cerberus FIM Investors LLC. GMAC has three primary lines of business — auto finance, mortgages and insurance — and has $189 billion in assets and operations in 40 countries.

It had revenue last year of $18.4 billion, and employed 22,700 at year-end.

On Feb. 20, The Detroit News reported GMAC may move its headquarters to Charlotte, but reported it would keep its auto finance business in Detroit.

A GMAC spokeswoman said the company has no plans to move its headquarters.

“For the past quarter-century, GMAC has headquartered its business in Detroit and has no current plans to change that status,” she told Atlanta Business Chronicle in a March 10 e-mail.

“We have large and significant business operations and staffs in a variety of U.S. and non-U.S. cities, including the addition of an expanding corporate center in Charlotte ... where many of our senior executives are located. Otherwise, it is not productive to speculate on possible future changes,” she wrote in the e-mail.

GMAC’s real estate footprint stretches from Minnesota to Georgia.

In Detroit, GMAC leases about 220,000 square feet from GM through a lease expiring in November 2016, according to the company’s annual report filed Feb. 27 with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In New York, it leases 18,000 square feet of office space under a lease that expires in July 2011, and in Charlotte it leases 26,000 square feet under a lease expiring in May 2009.

The company’s primary U.S. insurance operations are in Southfield, Mich. Other significant offices are in Maryland Heights, Mo., and Winston-Salem, N.C.

The primary offices of its ResCap residential finance operation are in Fort Washington, Pa., and Minneapolis.

GMAC already has a big presence in metro Atlanta, with one of its four regional business centers in Duluth.

GMAC also has an automotive finance facility in Duluth and a personal insurance facility at Georgia 400 and Abernathy Road.

The company employs about 250 people across metro Atlanta, a spokeswoman said.

GMAC
Primary U.S. offices:


Detroit — 220,000 square feet. Lease expires November 2016.
New York — 18,000 square feet. Lease expires in July 2011.
Charlotte — 26,000 square feet. Lease expires in May.

http://atlanta.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2009/03/16/story2.html?b=1237176000%5E1793206