Lloyds eyes bid for Bank of America's UK credit-card business - report

Lloyds Banking Group is preparing to bid for Bank of America’s UK credit-card business, MBNA, in what may be its first acquisition since being rescued by taxpayers in 2009, according to a media report.

MNBA, which has a loan book of about £7bn, was likely to draw interest from several groups, among them Barclaycard, Virgin Money, Santander UK and private-equity firms, the Financial Times said, citing banking sources.

If Lloyds did go ahead with a deal, it would underscore just how far it had come since being bailed out seven years ago, in the intervening time having repaired the damage to its balance sheet caused by the global financial meltdown.

Chester-based MBNA would fit with Lloyds’ search for deals to speed up its planned expansion in niche areas, such as unsecured consumer loans, car finance, leasing and fleet management, the FT reported.

In 2015 Lloyds took part in a consortium that made an unsuccessful bid for Leaseplan, which is the fleet-management arm of Volkswagen, the newspaper said.

It apparently also carefully considered a bid for Athlon, the fleet-management business being sold by Rabobank, but decided against proceeding, the newspaper said.