BUENOS AIRES (Dow Jones)--Argentina's Grupo Supervielle on Wednesday said it has agreed to buy the local operations of GE Money, including the consumer credit services for Wal-Mart Argentina, for an undisclosed sum. General Electric Co. (GE) had expanded it's GE Money consumer finance brand around the world but is exiting many of those products and regions as it re-evaluates and shrinks its financial businesses, putting a greater focus on its industrial businesses.
"The transaction is in line with GE's global objective to reduce capital size and refocus its resources in other areas of the company," said Stephen White, a spokesman for GE Capital.
In Argentina, GE Money's portfolio currently totals 500 million Argentine pesos ($127 million), and it has 330,000 card customers, Supervielle said in a statement, adding it will become the main MasterCard issuer in the Argentine market.
With the acquisition, Grupo Supervielle will gain exclusive rights to provide consumer credit services for customers of the Wal-Mart (WMT) and Changomas stores, Supervielle said.
"The acquisition will reinforce Grupo Supervielle's position in the unbanked consumer credit segment, where it already offers microcredit through Cordial Microfinanzas and consumer credit through Tarjeta Automatica," Supervielle said.
The transaction is subject to the approval of the Central Bank of Argentina.
-By Matthew Cowley, Dow Jones Newswires; +54 11 4103 6740; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
(Paul Glader in New York contributed to this article.)
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100707-713665.html
