Tuesday, December 27, 2011 - 11:26 AM

MetLife To Sell Bank Deposits To GE Capital Financial

MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET) announced today that GE Capital Financial Inc. will acquire most of the depository business of MetLife Bank, N.A. Financial terms of the transaction, which is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012, were not disclosed.

Some insights into why MetLife wanted to sell its banking business are provided by the New York Times:

MetLife is swiftly dismantling its banking business, in a bid to ward off increased regulatory oversight.

And some insights from GE's side are provided by Reuters:

For GE Capital, the deal brings access to a retail deposit base, which the conglomerate's finance arm needed to broaden its funding. Earlier this month it said it intended to go after retail deposits next year.

KenBDG5,147 posts since
Nov 29, 2009
Rep Points: 117,067

1. Tuesday, December 27, 2011 - 9:25 PM

After losing the bid for ING Direct to Capital One, GE Capital Financial finally got one. I have a feeling that GE will be geting more deposit accounts in 2012. Maybe GE wants to become too big to fail in banking, instead of just being too big to fail in industry.

EnronLoveChunk20 posts since
Oct 19, 2011
Rep Points: 65