Truist Financial Corp. is exploring a sale of specialty lender Afco Credit Corp. as new Chief Executive Officer Mike Lyons unloads non-core lending businesses to better focus on banking operations, according to people familiar with the matter.
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The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank is working with financial advisers to seek a buyer for Afco, which handles insurance premium financing and has $6 billion to $7 billion in assets, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the details are private. Truist is considering selling the business outright or unloading its assets, which are expected to draw interest from private credit players, one of the people said.
While it's unclear how much Afco would be worth in a sale, it's expected to fetch a premium to its assets, the person said. The process is in the early stages and may not result in a sale, the people added.
A representative for Truist declined to comment.
Truist, whose stock has climbed 11% in the past year, was up about 1% to $48.90 a share at 2:48 p.m. Monday in New York, giving the company a market value of about $59 billion.
The potential divestiture comes as Lyons, the former Fiserv Inc. CEO who took over at Truist last month, seeks to get rid of tertiary businesses while investing in the branch network, mobile banking and other operations tied to deposit-gathering, which is central to bank profitability.
Truist exited a near-prime auto lending business in September and agreed this month to sell $7.7 billion of personal loans to Carlyle Group Inc. It also named new leaders for its consumer bank and small-business banking operations, and is shutting down an executive training facility in Greensboro, North Carolina, a move expected to save tens of millions of dollars in annual expenses.
Afco is a lender that helps businesses, such as trucking fleets and construction companies, pay their insurance bills. Truist significantly expanded into that market in 2022 via its $3.4 billion acquisition of BankDirect Capital Finance.
Matt Monks and Yizhu Wang