Tesco Banking Business to Sell Mortgage Portfolio to Lloyds Bank for Around GBP3.8 Billion

   By Oliver Griffin 
 

U.K. supermarket Tesco PLC (TSCO.LN) on Tuesday said its banking business has agreed to sell its mortgage portfolio to Lloyds Banking Group PLC (LLOY.LN) for around 3.8 billion pounds ($4.6 billion).

Tesco said that as part of the sale by Tesco Personal Finance PLC, the entire residential mortgage portfolio and arrangements for the administration will transfer to Halifax, which is a division of Lloyds' wholly owned Bank of Scotland PLC.

Tesco Personal Finance--also known as Tesco Bank--has more than 23,000 mortgage customers in its portfolio, with a lending balance of around GBP3.7 billion, the supermarket said. The customer accounts will be transferred to Halifax once necessary arrangements have been delivered and the transfer of the legal title is expected to take place by the end of March 2020.

Lloyds said the acquired portfolio will generate good returns to the group, and that it now expects its open mortgage book assets at the end of 2019 to be ahead of the balance at the end of last year.

Lloyds said it will buy the mortgage portfolio using existing internal resources. The deal will have a minimal impact on capital, Lloyds said. It forecast an impact in the mid-to-high single-digits basis points at the end of the year.

Tesco said the deal was in line with its banking business's strategy of focusing on a reduced number of products and services.

Sale proceeds will be used for re-investment into Tesco Bank's customer officer, the transformation of the business and the rebalancing of retail and wholesale funding sources, given the reduction in overall lending.

Write to Oliver Griffin at [e-mail]; @OliGGriffin

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 03, 2019 02:37 ET (06:37 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.