April 30, 2024 13:44 GMT
Barclays May Buy GS's "GM Cards" Business: Small But Unusual
FINANCIALS
Barclays (BACR: Baa1/BBB+/A) is reported to be in talks with Goldman Sachs (GS: A2/BBB+/A) to take over the GM-branded card and its USD2bn in balances. Barclays was selling US card assets in February so this would be a turnaround but, either way, is relatively small in a group context.
- GS is now exiting most of its consumer finance business and, in fact, bought this from Capital One in 2020, beating Barclays in the bid process. The business reportedly had over USD2bn of balances then and GS reportedly paid c.USD2.5bn for it.
- WSJ is reporting the business has similar balance levels now, with Bread Financial and US Bancorp in the bidding, also.
- Barclays has actually been more seller than buyer recently (it sold USD1.1bn of US card balances to Blackstone in Feb-24) and the drive to streamline the ground meant we’d speculated it could look to sell the totality of its business there. Either way, USD2bn of assets would only be c.0.2% of total assets (and c.2-3% of Barclays’ international retail business’s assets) so this is relatively small.
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