Potential sale could represent firm’s exit from consumer banking space after difficult few years
Investment banking giant Goldman Sachs has entered into exclusive talks with a consortium of investment firms to sell its GreenSky lending business, according to The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal.
The sale could be worth $500 million, worth less than one third of the $1.7 billion price Goldman paid for GreenSky 18 months ago.
GreenSky is an Atlanta-based lender, loaning money to customers for home improvements. When Goldman acquired GreenSky in March of 2022 it was viewed as another step in the investment bank’s ambitious plan to enter the retail & consumer banking space.
According to reports, the consortium comprises Sixth Street, Pacific Investment Management, KKR, as well as two smaller investors. Those same reports cautioned that these talks could still falter and the terms of the deal could change. Neither Goldman nor any of the named firms have commented to either the Journal or the Times.
In the past two years investors have expressed unease around Goldman’s retail banking push, and the heavy losses taken as part of that plan. Last October Goldman Sachs announced they were scaling back their retail banking plans. In August the firm also announced it had agreed to sell an investment advisory business it acquired four years ago.
Goldman Sacks stock has risen a little over 5% in the past month and was up slightly at time of writing today.
