CHARLOTTE ó Gov. Bev Perdue today announced that GMAC Financial Services will grow its Mecklenburg County operations and invest more than $16.4 million, including capitalized lease payments, for an expanded corporate center.
The Charlotte expansion is expected to create 200 finance, marketing, IT and related jobs over the next two years that will pay an average annual wage of $96,124, not including benefits.
“Charlotte has a national reputation as a leading financial center, and the Queen City continues to attract major investments by global companies like GMAC,” said Gov. Perdue.
GMAC Financial Services is a bank holding company with operations in North America, South America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. GMAC specializes in automotive finance, real estate finance, insurance, commercial finance and online banking. As of Dec. 31, 2008, the organization had $189 billion in assets and serviced 15 million customers around the world. Visit the GMAC media site at http://media.gmacfs.com for more information.
“We are excited about growing our presence in Charlotte. This is a great city with a deep talent pool,” said Alvaro G. de Molina, GMAC chief executive officer and long-time resident of Charlotte.
The state’s Economic Investment Committee met today and voted unanimously to award a Job Development Investment Grant to GMAC to facilitate this expansion. This is the second JDIG awarded in 2009.
For each year in which the company meets the required performance targets, the state will provide a grant equal to 60 percent of the state personal income withholding taxes derived from the creation of new jobs. Should the company create the jobs called for under the agreement and sustain them for nine years, the agreement could yield as much as nearly $4.5 million in maximum benefits for GMAC.
In addition, the grant could provide up to nearly $1.5 million to the Industrial Development Fund for infrastructure improvements in economically distressed counties. When a Job Development Investment Grant is awarded to one of the state’s more economically prosperous counties such as Mecklenburg, 25 percent of the grant award is allocated to the Industrial Development Fund to encourage economic development in less prosperous counties.
Job Development Investment Grants are awarded only to new and expanding businesses and industrial projects whose benefits exceed the costs to the state and which would not be undertaken in North Carolina without the grant. Since the first grant was awarded in 2003, the program has been responsible for creating commitments for more than 30,000 jobs and $5 billion in investment in North Carolina.
Other partners who assisted with this announcement include: the N.C. Department of Commerce, Mecklenburg County, the City of Charlotte and the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce.
For more information about GMAC, including employment opportunities with the company, visit http://www.gmacfs.com/us/en/index.html.