As Goldman Sachs exits parts of the consumer banking business, it's been inching closer to finding a buyer for GreenSky.
Second-round bids for GreenSky were due earlier in August, or about two weeks ago, four banking and private equity sources told my colleague Luisa Beltran. In the running is a consortium of investors led by Sixth Street, which is trying to buy GreenSky, the people said. There's also Apollo Global Management, which isn't part of the Sixth Street investor group, that is also vying for the specialty lender, the story said.
Here's more:
Goldman is weighing different options for GreenSky, the people said. It could sell the GreenSky platform and loan book to one party, or it could offload the platform to one party and sell the loan book to another. Or Goldman could sell the platform and keep the existing loan book. Goldman received different bids for the different the options and it’s unclear how the offers line up. Proposals came in at between $500 million to $1 billion, one of the bankers said, while others said the bids were half of what Goldman paid in 2022, they said. (The GreenSky acquisition was initially valued at $2.24 billion in September 2021 but dropped to $1.7 billion when the transaction closed the following March.)
It’s unlikely there will be a third round of bidding for GreenSky. “They need to finish,” one of the people said.
“This is a super long, long process,” said one banker, who wasn’t involved in the auction.
Could the second time be the charm for Apollo to snap up GreenSky, the fintech founded in 2006 that helps consumers get home improvement loans?
The current sale of GreenSky gives Apollo another chance to buy GreenSky, which was up for sale in 2019. Late that year, Goldman made $7 a share, or about $1.3 billion cash offer to buy GreenSky, according to a regulatory filing. The process went dormant after Goldman refused to raise its bid and GreenSky ended up calling off the auction in August 2020, the filing said. In mid-2021, Goldman resumed talks to buy GreenSky and the discussions heated up after a private equity firm, identified in the filing as “Financial Sponsor D,” made an offer to buy the lender. The unnamed private equity firm, which the Wall Street Journal reported was Apollo, tried to preempt the process and then engaged in a bidding war with Goldman for GreenSky, according to the filing. Goldman Sachs ended up winning the process, agreeing to buy GreenSky for about $12.15 a share in September 2021, the filing said. It completed the acquisition in March 2022. Roughly one year later, in April, Goldman confirmed that it had put GreenSky up for sale.
You can read the full story here.
An important programming note…I wanted to say a quick word and thank Jackson Fordyce for his tireless efforts curating the Term Sheet deals section every single day since he joined us in January 2022. Jackson’s enthusiasm, attention to detail, and pure joy knows no bounds. It’s a difficult job keeping track of the opaque private markets, and he’s done so brilliantly day in and day out. This is his last day on the Term Sheet team, so please send him some love and gratitude. I hope you’ll also join me in welcoming Joseph Abrams to the Term Sheet deals section. As always, please continue to send deal news to termsheet@fortune.com!
Until Monday,
Jessica Mathews
Twitter: @jessicakmathews
Email: jessica.mathews@fortune.com
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