Residential Capital getting new chief executive

Thomas Marano is taking over as CEO of ResCap, effective immediately. He is replacing Jim Jones, who is leaving the company.

Marano will continue to serve as a managing director at Cerberus Capital.

In 2006, an investor group led by Cerberus Capital purchase a 51 percent stake in GMAC from General Motors Corp, which holds the rest.

Cerberus also named Joshua Weintraub to the role of vice chairman of ResCap. Jerry Lombardo was named treasury executive of the company, replacing Bill Casey, who left the company.

Both Weintraub and Lombardo are employees of Cerberus Capital.

Tony Renzi was named to the newly created position of chief operating officer at ResCap. He previously oversaw ResCap's U.S. residential funding operations.

The executive shake ups come amid significant deterioration in the credit and mortgage markets. Like most other mortgage lenders, ResCap has struggled over the past year amid rising mortgage defaults. The company has posted large losses, including a loss of $859 million during the first quarter.

In recent months, ResCap has initiated several changes at the company to shore up its balance sheet in an effort to remain solvent.

ResCap increased the size of an existing credit facility with GMAC and is selling some of its assets to GMAC and Cerberus. It also embarked on a debt exchange program to lengthen the maturity of or pay off $14 billion in outstanding debt to avoid a liquidity crunch.