Citi Agrees to Sell Brazilian Consumer Finance Business

Citigroup (NYSE:C) is selling its Brazilian credit card and consumer finance business to Banco Itaú Unibanco.

The third-largest U.S. bank said Tuesday that it expects the sale of its Credicard business to generate a gain on sale of approximately $300 million after-tax, or 10 cents per share, once the deal is approved by Brazilian regulators.

Citigroup is selling 96 Credicard branches and about $3.26 billion in credit card and personal loan balances. The deal does not include the bank's retail branches in Brazil or some of its credit card brands, although Citigroup said in December that it would scale back some of its branches in the country. Chief Executive Michael Corbat has been cutting back the bank’s massive global operations, in an effort to improve its profitability and accelerate its ongoing recovery from the financial crisis.

Francisco Aristeguieta, head of Citi Latin America, said in a press release that the bank "will continue to grow our institutional and retail consumer banking businesses" in Brazil.