Barclays may face loss on FirstPlus sale: paper

LONDON (Reuters) - Barclays (BARC.L) is preparing to sell its FirstPlus sub-prime consumer loan business at a loss, according to a newspaper report on Sunday.

General Electric Co (GE.N) and AIG (AIG.N) are the frontrunners to acquire the business at a knock-down price, the Sunday Telegraph said. Barclays declined to comment.

The paper said Frits Seegers, the head of Barclays' global retail business, had been running an auction of FirstPlus for several weeks and the unit was expected to change hands for less than the 4.5 billion pounds ($9.1 billion) value of its loan portfolio, with no premium paid for the business itself.

Back in the summer it was expected to fetch as much as 4.9 billion, implying a value for the unit of 400 million pounds.

Seegers had been due to make a decision on whether to proceed with the sale last week, but has now delayed his verdict until later this month, the Sunday Telegraph added.

In April, Barclays sold most of its sub-prime credit card unit Monument to U.S. credit card issuer CompuCredit (CCRT.O) for about 390 million pounds.