Tempers are flaring between Ally Bank and ResCap, its bankrupt mortgage-lending unit.
A group of ResCap creditors and the company’s board are expected to ask a judge today for permission to sue Ally to get it to fork over an additional $2 billion-plus in cash, The Post has learned.
Ally had offered ResCap creditors $750 million to settle all claims against the government-owned bank.
The creditors balked at the offer — saying Ally stands to get nearly $2 billion in operating-loss tax credits and was cheating them with such a low offer.
A judge ordered the two sides to work on a settlement — talks that now appear to have failed.
The ResCap unsecured creditors committee is expected to file a motion in court today to clear the way for a lawsuit — which could follow in 60 days, sources close to the situation said.
At the same time, the creditors will be allowing Ally’s agreement to contribute $750 million to the ResCap reorganization to expire at the end of the month, a source close to the situation said.
The ResCap board will join the company’s unsecured official creditors committee in the action, sources said.
The move by ResCap will make it tougher for Ally to wipe its hands of ResCap and then go public in an attempt to raise money to repay its taxpayer bailout.
“This throws into question the entire strategy of putting ResCap into bankruptcy,” the source said.
“This is not the deal Ally hoped for when it filed bankruptcy [last May].”
A group of hedge funds that are ResCap creditors has been pushing Ally to quadruple its contribution to the ResCap reorganization from the $750 million now on the table to $3 billion.
Treasury owns 74 percent of Ally, and some creditors believe Ally can pay them much more without impacting regulatory capital.
They believe Ally will collect more than $1.7 billion in net operating losses once it rids itself of ResCap that rightly belongs to them.
Canyon Capital Advisors, King Street Capital, Lone Star Funds, Moore Capital Management and Redwood Capital Management together, as of June, owned much of $900 million of unsecured debt, according to a bankruptcy filing.
Every additional dollar contributed by Ally to the ResCap reorganization is a dollar less in value taxpayer-owned Ally has available to pay back Treasury.
Ally — the black sheep of the auto-related bailouts — still owes taxpayers $11.3 billion of the $17.2 billion it took.
Ally, worth more than $10 billion, will sell itself or go public once it completes the restructuring. Washington is looking to fast-track its exit from Ally as credit markets are booming, making Ally more valuable, a source said.
In January, the bankruptcy court appointed an independent mediator to oversee the liquidation of Ally’s bankrupt ResCap unit and broker a deal between Ally and its creditors.
ResCap’s prior sales of mortgage assets to Ocwen Financial, Walter Financial and Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway have closed and are not affected.
jkosman@nypost.com