General Motors Corp. has announced that it hopes to sell a controlling stake in its profitable finance unit, General Motors Acceptance Corp.

A sale of over 50 percent could raise between $10 billion and $15 billion, according to reports in The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. Among possible bidders for parts of the unit are: Bank of America Corp., HSBC Holdings PLC and General Electric Co.’s GE Capital.

Sanjiv Khattri, executive vice president and chief financial officer of GMAC, told the Wall Street Journal that the "junk" status of GM’s debt has made it difficult to compete with mortgage and auto lenders that have higher credit ratings. GMAC currently pays more than three percentage points more than the U.S. government does for its borrowing.

"It is better to be a partial owner of a growing organization that has competitive access to funding, than to be a full owner of an organization whose funding might be constrained," Khattri said.

GM executives said the automaker’s relationship with the finance company would not go away. They expect GMAC to continue to provide the support GM needs to sell its vehicles around the world.

The affect of a sale on GM dealers and consumers has yet to be answered. According to the Wall Street Journal, some 80 percent of GM dealers borrow through GMAC and some 40 percent of all GM sales are financed through GMAC.