Former subprime lender ResCap files for Ch. 11

Residential Capital L.L.C., which was a big subprime mortgage lender and still employs 1,385 in Fort Washington, filed for bankruptcy protection in New York on Monday.

The move, which analysts had been expecting for months, is a reminder of the distress that festers in some corners of the financial industry following the burst of the home mortgage bubble five years ago.

Ally Financial Inc., the owner of Residential Capital (ResCap), said that unloading the money-losing mortgage subsidiary and shedding certain other operations would enable it more quickly to repay the $12 billion it still owes the federal government from bailouts in 2008.