Discover sells Goldfish to Barclays
February 07, 2008 – Discover Financial Services has agreed to sell its Goldfish credit card business in the UK to Barclays for US$70 million cutting loose a business it bought two years ago for US$1.7 billion. Barclays will acquire 1.7 million Goldfish and affinity card accounts with about US$4 billion of receivables, and take on Goldfish’s brand, staff and facilities. The card business includes MasterCard and Visa. Discover will take a first-quarter charge of US$190 million to US$210 million and said the sale should improve earnings for the rest of the year. The sale underscores the difficulties of managing an international credit card business and continued credit challenges in the UK consumer sector.
Posted by Ali Raza on Thursday, February 07, 2008