HSBC Exits U.S. Auto Finance Business

LONDON (TheStreet) - HSBC(HBC), the British bank, said Tuesday it completed the sale of its remaining U.S. auto finance businesses to Banco Santander (STD) for $3.56 billion cash.

The Santander Consumer USA unit also will assume about $431 million of debt, HSBC said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange. The carrying value of the loans at June 30 was $4.3 billion, the bank said.

In March, Santander Consumer USA acquired $1 billion in auto finance loan receivables from HSBC.

HSBC's sale completes its exit from a market that cost the bank billions during the financial crisis.

HSBC became the biggest subprime lender in the United States through its $14 billion acquisition of Household International in 2002, and wrote off billions in losses on soured U.S. loans during the global credit crisis.

The bank announced in March 2009 that it would stop making consumer loans in the United States and would wind down the consumer lending business by 2014.

-- Written by Joseph Woelfel

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