UPDATE: GMAC Still Fails Stress Test; Other 9 Cos Are OK

UPDATE: GMAC Still Fails Stress Test; Other 9 Cos Are OK - Fed

(Adds further details, background, in the first and sixth through eighth paragraphs.)

 
   By Luca Di Leo and Darrell A. Hughes 
   Of DOW JONES NEWSIRES

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)

The U.S. Federal Reserve said Monday that auto lender GMAC Financial Services was the only one of 10 bank-holding companies that hasn't yet met capital requirements under its stress tests.

However, the central bank said in a statement that GMAC is expected to meet the capital ratios required by accessing the U.S. Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, automotive-industry financing program.

Despite extraordinary help from the U.S. government, including $12.5 billion of federal funds and access to cheap debt, GMAC is struggling to return to the black as it takes hit after hit on its mortgage unit, Residential Capital LLC.

GMAC is in talks with the U.S. Treasury to get a third infusion of up to $5.6 billion in TARP funds.

The Fed said the other nine bank-holding companies that were found not to meet capital requirements earlier this year had now raised enough capital or improved the quality of capital sufficiently.

The central bank said the 10 companies, including GMAC, had boosted their capital by a total $77 billion, mainly by issuing common equity or other eligible securities.

In May, Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Citigroup Inc. (C), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), GMAC LLC and Morgan Stanley (MS) were told they need to raise capital. Regions Financial Corp. (RF), Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB), KeyCorp (KEY), PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (PNC) and SunTrust Banks Inc. (STI) also were told to bolster their reserves.

By contrast, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), American Express Co. (AXP), BB&T Corp. (BBT), State Street Corp. (STT), MetLife Inc. (MET), Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BK), U.S. Bancorp (USB) and Capital One Financial Corp. (COF) were told they didn't need to raise additional capital.

In its stress tests of 19 large banks earlier this year, Fed economists designed dire economic scenarios and measured the resilience of big banks against those scenarios. Fed officials expect to make those stress tests a model for future supervision.

-By Luca Di Leo, Dow Jones Newswires; 202 862 6682; luca.dileo@dowjones.com