Blackstone Group is among the potential buyers of Citigroup Inc.'s Egg Banking PLC and is working on a plan to team up for the deal with the private-equity-owned credit card company SAV Credit, a person familiar with the situation said Friday.
Citi bought Egg for $1.13 billion from the U.K. insurer Prudential PLC in 2007 and is selling the Internet bank as part of its strategy to reduce assets that are not central to its business.
Other potential bidders for Egg are Ally Financial Inc. and Barclays PLC. Citi has asked for bids by the third week in November, according to a recent press report.
Though Egg has a broad range of products, including savings accounts, loans and insurance as well as credit cards, SAV Credit's focus is credit cards which it supplies to more than 600,000 customers.
Any deal involving Egg and SAV would create one of the U.K.'s largest credit card companies.
