Egg poached by Barclays
Barclays Bank has agreed to acquire Derby-based creditor Egg's UK credit card assets. Barclays will purchase Egg's 1.15 million UK credit card accounts, with approximately £2.3bn of gross receivables. The assets were bought from US-based lender Citigroup.
Barclays has bought the division from US-based lender Citigroup.
The sum of the acquisition was not disclosed.
Barclays said it intends to integrate the accounts into its credit card division, Barclaycard.
The banking giant said that the acquisition had “reinforced” its strategic ambition to grow in its chosen markets and businesses.
Chris Lucas, group finance director of Barclays, said: “The acquisition of Egg's UK credit card accounts has been priced at a significant discount to gross receivables. Based on current projections, we expect the transaction to exceed the financial return targets set out at our recent results announcement.”
Valerie Soranno Keating, chief executive of Barclaycard, said: “Barclaycard has a long history of providing simple and innovative payment solutions for our customers since launching the first UK credit card 45 years ago.
"We are very pleased to welcome over a million Egg customers and to provide them with access to our mainstream capabilities in areas such as mobile and contactless payments, digital servicing and instant rewards.”
Completion is subject to competition clearance, and is expected to occur during the first half of 2011.
Citigroup acquired Egg from insurance group Prudential in 2007 for £575m. The American bank had been looking to sell Egg for several months.
Barclays was rumoured to be interested in buying the online bank last October.
Citigroup's sale of Egg's assets is part of its plan to sell off non-core divisions. The company received a huge bailout from the US government during the recession.
