To more clearly understand what this means, let's compare the debt levels of Ford and General Motors. A couple of years before the Great Recession forced GM into a unique bankruptcy, the company was already struggling. To help fund a massive turnaround effort, GM sold a 51% stake of its own banking entity, before eventually getting rid of its financial arm entirely. GM would only exit the auto lending business briefly, though, and in 2010 it purchased another bank entity, AmeriCredit, which it renamed General Motors Financial (GMF).