Goldman Sachs offloads $1 billion of Marcus loans to Varde -source

By Saeed Azhar

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Goldman Sachs Group has sold $1 billion of personal loans from its consumer unit, Marcus, to alternative investment firm Varde Partners, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

This was the second tranche of unsecured loans offloaded by Goldman after it disclosed earlier it had sold about $1 billion from the $4.5 billion loan portfolio in the first quarter.

The Wall Street giant booked a $470 million loss on the sale of some Marcus loans in the first quarter, which dragged down its earnings.

The bank also released $440 million from its reserves to soften the hit from its consumer loan portfolio.

In February it had announced its intentions to further sell down the portfolio.

Marcus was folded into the company's merged asset and wealth management arm last year. The newly-formed Platform Solutions unit houses transaction banking, credit cards and a fintech unit, GreenSky purchased for $2.2 billion in 2021

Goldman has put GreenSky for sale.

The sale to Varde was reported by Bloomberg News earlier on Thursday, citing people with knowledge of the transaction, saying the loans were sold at a discount to their face value to Varde.

Goldman and Varde declined to comment.

Founded in 1993, Varde has invested $95 billion across both public and private credit markets.

Varde currently manages over $12 billion in assets with teams in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific focused on corporate and traded credit, real estate, and financial services, it says on its website.

(Reporting by Saeed Azhar in New York and Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Josie Kao)