Discover Sells Goldfish to Barclays Bank
Discover Financial Services and Barclays Bank have announced that the companies have signed a definitive agreement for Barclays to acquire Discover’s Goldfish credit card business based in the United Kingdom.
Under the agreement, Barclays will acquire the card portfolio consisting of 1.7 million Goldfish and affinity card accounts with approximately $4 billion (£2 billion) of receivables; the Goldfish brand; its operating facilities; certain legal entities; and staff.
“While we have begun to see important progress in our U.K. business, the funding and operating environment there continues to be a challenge. We have concluded that the best way to maximize shareholder value is through the sale of the Goldfish business,” said David Nelms, chief executive officer of Discover. “The sale will free up capital, enhance Discover’s net income and bring even sharper focus to our profitable and growing U.S. Card and Third-Party Payments businesses.”
Antony Jenkins, chief executive of Barclaycard, said: “Barclaycard is one of the largest card issuers in the U.K. with acknowledged expertise in risk management, customer data management and marketing. Goldfish has similar credit characteristics to our existing U.K. business. The combination provides an attractive opportunity to deploy our expertise across a larger number of cards and customers.”
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