Goldman Sachs is in exclusive talks to sell installment-lending fintech GreenSky to a group of investment firms that includes Sixth Street, Pimco and KKR, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
A deal would be worth roughly $500 million, the outlet’s sources said. That’s a fraction of what the bank paid for GreenSky last year. Goldman agreed in September 2021 to pay $2.24 billion for the fintech, but the value of the deal dropped to $1.73 billion by the time it finalized in March 2022.
That still may have been high. Goldman disclosed a $504 million writedown related to GreenSky in July.
If an agreement materializes, it would be the second deal forged under Goldman CEO David Solomon to be undone in roughly a month. The bank sold its financial planning arm, Personal Financial Management, to independent wealth manager Creative Planning in late August for an undisclosed sum.
GreenSky has been rumored as a target for potential spinoff since Goldman announced a reorganization last October that markedly de-emphasized the bank’s push into consumer lending.
In the revamp, GreenSky was assigned to a division of Goldman, Platform Solutions, that in January was credited with accumulating more than $3 billion in losses since 2020.
Solomon said in February that the bank was “considering strategic alternatives” to its consumer business but didn’t confirm it was exploring selling GreenSky until two months later.
Sixth Street, KKR, Warburg Pincus, Synchrony and Apollo Global Management had bid for GreenSky in early June, CNBC reported.
Though the bank said publicly that it was “pleased” with bidders’ participation, at least one bidder told CNBC that Goldman had expressed frustration at the price of the offers.
“Everybody’s been coming in low, and the Goldman team keeps pushing back, pounding the table about the value of it,” a bidder said at the time.
Goldman itself may have been persuaded to pay more for GreenSky than it ordinarily would have. Talks to buy the fintech in mid-2021 had come to a standstill, The Wall Street Journal reported, when GreenSky CEO David Zalik told Solomon that another firm — Apollo — was close to a deal to buy the fintech, and that Goldman needed to hurry if it wanted to compete.
No final decision has been made on the latest potential GreenSky selloff, and talks may fall through, sources told Bloomberg on Tuesday.
Representatives for Goldman and Sixth Street declined to immediately comment to the wire service on the situation.
