MBNA credit card arm sold

BANK OF America has sold its Irish credit card portfolio to Apollo Global Management less than a year after selling its Spanish credit card unit to the same firm.

The move secures 250 MBNA jobs at the company’s Carrick-on-Shannon operation in Co Leitrim.

Apollo said in a statement yesterday it had a definitive agreement to buy the consumer credit card portfolio, which includes more than 200,000 customer accounts with a balance of more than €650 million of receivables.

The credit card accounts will continue to be managed in Ireland at the MBNA unit, staffed by 250 people, Apollo said. Its EPF fund has been on the hunt for European non-performing and illiquid loan portfolios divested by financial institutions, inking 20 deals totalling more than €7 billion of loans over the past four years.

Bank of America announced its intention to sell its Irish credit card unit in August as part of a strategy to shed non-core businesses in order to streamline the company and build capital.

The bank has said it intends to sell its card business in Britain, part of which is managed from the Carrick-on-Shannon premises, where 750 people have been employed. Financial terms of the Irish credit card portfolio sale were not disclosed. A Bank of America spokesman said the sale was consistent with the bank’s previously announced strategy, but declined further comment.

The mood locally was upbeat after the breakthrough, which was revealed to staff just before lunchtime yesterday. Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Ricard Bruton welcomed the announcement and confirmed the UK credit card operation, which employs 400 people at the facility, would continue as a going concern.

In selling the international consumer credit card businesses, Bank of America chief executive Brian Moynihan is parting with pieces of credit card giant MBNA which his predecessor Ken Lewis acquired for $35 billion in 2006.

Ian O’Doherty, Europe card executive for Bank of America, predicted the transaction would be finalised in the first half of 2013, subject to regulatory approval. – (Additional reporting, Reuters)