Goldman Sachs has reportedly completed a $1 billion loan sale to the investment firm Varde as part of its plans to exit from its Marcus consumer loan business.
Varde bought the loans from Goldman at a price that was labeled as a discount to face value, Bloomberg reported Thursday (July 13), citing unnamed sources. These loans involved borrowers who were making regular payments and meeting their obligations.
Goldman is working to ensure that all its consumer loans are offloaded, discontinuing the direct origination of credit for consumers.
As PYMNTS reported in April, a Goldman Sachs earnings report showed the firm was turning away from its retail ambitions and focusing more fully on Wall Street as it had in the past.
It took a $470 million loss on the partial sale of its book of Marcus loans, put GreenSky up for sale and stopped its installment loan business.
“We continue to explore strategic alternatives within our consumer platform businesses,” Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said at the time, adding that the company sold a portion of its Marcus loan portfolio and transferred the remainder to held-for-sale designation.
The actions were representative of “narrowing our focus in the consumer space,” Solomon said.
Looking ahead, as the company pivots more fully to Wall Street and serving enterprise clients, management said it sees a greenfield opportunity in transaction banking, where $74 million in revenues represented 10% growth year on year; associated deposits were $1 billion.
In another move by the firm, Goldman Sachs Transaction Banking (TxB) partnered with Coupa in April to streamline B2B payments.
With Coupa’s business spend management platform and Goldman Sachs TxB’s cloud-based banking services, the global collaboration will simplify domestic, cross-border and foreign exchange (FX) payments to 167 countries and 124 currencies.
“This collaboration allows us to unlock additional value for global businesses looking to modernize their payments processes and increase visibility for both buyers and suppliers,” Goldman Sachs Head of Product and Transaction Banking Brinda Bhattacharjee said at the time.
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