General Motors Co.’s acquisition of subprime lender AmeriCredit Corp. for $3.5 billion later this year could be the first step toward creating a full-blown captive finance company, Automotive News reported.

AmeriCredit lacks the capital of other automakers’ finance arms, and it’s primarily a used-vehicle lender serving borrowers with risky credit. But GM praised its strong management and staying power, calling AmeriCredit the “core” of GM’s in-house finance operation.

GM now has Ally Financial Inc., formerly GMAC Financial Services, for floorplanning and most prime financing and AmeriCredit for some leasing and to buy deeper to serve customers with lower credit scores. This gives GM dealers nearly the coverage that Ford Motor Co. dealers get from Ford Motor Credit Co.

The AmeriCredit acquisition will allow GM to sell more vehicles in North America — perhaps as many as 20 percent more, some analysts say — because dealers say Ally hasn’t been buying very deep.

The new finance arm will improve GM’s “competitiveness in auto finance offerings,” CEO Ed Whitacre said in a conference call announcing the purchase last week. The move also strengthens GM’s position to launch an initial public offering.

The Reuters news agency reported last week that GM plans to file its registration for an IPO during the week of Aug. 16, just after the date that GM is expected to announce second-quarter results.

Besides possibly allowing GM to sell to more people, a captive can generate its own profits. For example, Ford Credit reported second-quarter pretax operating profits of $888 million.

GM’s deal with AmeriCredit came as Ford Credit ran into a temporary financing roadblock.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Ford captive pulled back a scheduled sale of bonds backed by auto loans in the wake of financial reforms signed into law last week by President Barack Obama.

In a statement, Ford Credit declined to comment.

Such asset-backed bonds, used to raise funds for future lending, are legally required to have credit ratings attached. But rating agencies — including Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch — now refuse to allow their ratings to be published, although they continue to make ratings as part of the bond offering. The agencies are reacting to new regulations that make it easier for investors to sue them.

The issue had threatened to freeze such bond sales. But on Friday, July 23, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a “no action” letter allowing asset-backed bond sales without credit ratings for six months. The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association credited the move with “avoiding the potential for negative impact on the availability of financing.”

For now, the planned acquisition of AmeriCredit leaves GM’s partnership with Ally intact, assuring a continuation of floorplan financing for GM dealerships.

General Motors Co. has announced a return to auto lending with a deal to acquire AmeriCredit Corp., the largest provider of loans to car buyers with less-than-stellar credit, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The $3.5 billion deal gives GM an in-house lender for the first time since it sold control of its GMAC finance arm in 2006, leaving it the only major car maker without a finance unit.

GM billed Thursday’s move as a surefire strategy to win over more buyers by increasing the availability of vehicle leases and loans. It comes as GM prepares a return to the public stock markets as soon as this fall.

But the strategy comes with risks. By loaning to customers with somewhat lower credit scores, GM could be exposed to more bad loans. Leasing also has perils; auto makers lost billions on bad leases in 2008 when the auto market collapsed.

“Dealers and customers have said not having an in-house finance arm hurts our ability to offer loans and leases,” GM CEO Edward E. Whitacre Jr. said in a conference call with analysts and media. “We were not as competitive as we could be.”

With AmeriCredit under its control, GM can influence the lender’s criteria for loans and have loan officers look more closely at customers who may be risks worth taking.

Chris Liddell, GM’s chief financial officer, has the job of making sure AmeriCredit doesn’t suffer the same fate as GMAC, which needed a $17 billion U.S. bailout in 2008 to stay afloat after racking up billion of losses on home mortgages and vehicle leases that went sour.

AmeriCredit will stick to auto financing, Liddell said. The recently improved resale values of vehicles also should limit leasing risks, he said.

When a finance company underwrites a lease, it essentially buys the vehicle from the car maker and rents it to the customer. After the lease expires, the finance company sells the vehicle on the used market. If used-car prices plunge, the lender can suffer big losses.

In the past, GM also used cut-rate loans and leases to pump up sales because it was stuck with too many plants. After restructuring in bankruptcy court, GM reined in production and should face less pressure to take risks on financing to boost sales.

Liddell said he is confident AmeriCredit can sustain itself without funding from GM, though the car maker would help offset the cost of loans as it does with other lenders.

General Motors Co., the automaker 61 percent owned by the U.S. Treasury, is facing criticism over its decision to pay $3.5 billion to buy a lender that specializes in auto loans to shoppers with less than top-notch credit, Bloomberg reported.

While GM plans to use its new lending arm to write auto leases and provide a “modest” boost in subprime loans, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley asked the watchdog of the government’s bank-rescue program to investigate the purchase. And a member of a think tank questioned the wisdom of a company that is majority-owned by the government lending money to people with poor credit after a financial crisis was sparked by risky loans.

“If GM has $3.5 billion in cash to buy a financial institution, it seems like it should have paid back taxpayers first,” Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, said in a statement on his website. “After GM’s experience with GMAC, which left GM seeking a taxpayer bailout, you have to think the company and, in turn, the taxpayers would be better off if GM focused on making cars that people want to buy and stayed clear of repeating its effort to make high-risk car loans.”

GM and Fort Worth, Texas-based AmeriCredit Corp. announced the deal yesterday that is intended to help the automaker sell to more customers with damaged credit ratings or who want to lease a new vehicle.

AmeriCredit is also profitable. It has made money in nine of the last 10 years, earning $1.8 billion. The purchase will be made with some of the $30 billion in cash GM has on hand, said Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell, who called the deal a “building block” toward an initial public offering.