According to Sky News, Sainsbury’s has received a number of offers ahead of a deadline earlier this week, one of which is believed to be from Lloyds Banking Group.
Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander did not put forward bids, it was reported.
The bank confirmed it would exit the mortgage market after just over two years, in its trading statement published in September. It stopped issuing new mortgages immediately but said it would honour any mortgage offers that had been made subject to a valuation.
However, borrowers who had already booked a deal but wanted to cancel and use an active lender, would not receive a refund of any fees paid.
Sainsbury’s completed £1.1bn in mortgage lending in 2018.
When the decision to sell the mortgage book was announced, that bank noted that since relaunching in 2017 the market had become more competitive and the revision would let the supermarket focus on other products with no more group capital injections required after £35m in 2019/20.
Lloyds Banking Group bought Tesco’s £3.7bn mortgage book in September. Borrowers were placed under the Halifax brand and will be allowed to switch to Halifax products at the end of their fixed term.
A Sainsbury’s spokesperson said: “As announced in September, we have stopped issuing new mortgages and are exploring options for the existing book. One option is to sell the book and we are exploring this option with interested parties. We emphasise that this is only one of the possible options.”
