Global financial giant Citigroup has reportedly said that it will offload or probably spin off its consumer lending arm OneMain Financial, as a publicly traded company by the end of 2014 or early next year.
Citigroup chief executive Michael Corbat was quoted by the Wall Street Journal as saying that the bank has started preparing OneMain “for exit or sale in some form.”
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The US bank feels that its consumer lending arm, part of the former CitiFinancial, doesn’t fit with company’s strategic direction, as it makes subprime loans.
Corbat told the publication that Citigroup has had the opportunity to divest OneMain but hasn’t because the price wasn’t right.
“It’s not a business that in the long term we’ll be in,” he said. “We think the business has a lot of value and we’re aiming to try to harvest that sometime late this year, early next year, if the markets are right.”
In January, Mr. Corbat had also indicated that the unit could be sold. However, at the time, he didn’t mention a possible initial public offering.
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By GlobalDataHe said that Citigroup is “open to” anything from a private-equity sale to an IPO to a “combination of the two.”
Citi is offloading its non-core and unprofitable business and is also trimming operation expenses, in a bid to bring the bank on profitability track.
