SAV Credit and Blackstone team prepare to up offer for Egg bank
SAV Credit, the owner of the Marbles and Aqua credit card businesses, has teamed up with private equity group Blackstone to prepare an offer for internet bank Egg.
SAV and Blackstone are expected to make a joint offer to current owner Citigroup later this month, according to a report by Sky News. Citi’s auction to sell Egg is thought to be scheduled for November.
Privately-owned SAV, which has more than 600,000 customers, has already bought more than half a million credit card loans from Citigroup earlier this year, as part of Citi’s attempts to slim down its non-core operations.
Citi bought Egg for £575m in 2007 in a drive to attract more UK customers.
Barclays has also been named as a potential bidder for Egg, which still has more than 2m customers in the UK.
SAV is backed by a number of investment firms, including Electra Private Equity and Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners, and is chaired by former Standard Chartered chief executive Sir Malcolm Williamson.
Spokespeople at Blackstone, SAV and Citigroup declined to comment.