Discover Financial Services is to write down the value of its Goldfish credit card business in the UK by up to $422 million due to the "very challenging" consumer credit environment in Britain.
Discover, which was spun off by Morgan Stanley earlier this year, says the non-cash impairment charge will be equal to "all or substantially all" of Goldfish's goodwill and other intangible assets.
The $422 million write-off comes less than two years after Morgan Stanley bought Goldfish from Lloyds TSB for $1.6 billion.
In a statement, David Nelms, CEO of Discover, says: "We have concluded that continued disruption in the UK financial markets, higher interest rates and our decision to reduce our loan exposure to the UK market have negatively affected the book value of our Goldfish business."
Nelms says efforts to "refocus" the Goldfish business have begun to produce positive results.
"We will continue implementation of significant actions to improve the performance of our UK business, and will continuously monitor our progress and assess options to maximise shareholder returns," he adds.