Toronto Dominion Bank has officially agreed to acquire Chrysler Financial. Cerberus Capital Management, the current owner of the Pentastar’s lending arm, will receive $6.3 billion from TD Bank in the deal. That figure marks a $900 million loss compared to the $7.4 billion that Cerberus paid for Chrysler financial in 2007 as part of the automaker’s takeover. Since then, Cerberus has been forced to hand the reins to the federal government as part of the bailout of 2008, and analysts from The Washington Post and Reuters feel that the capital firm is simply looking to be able to return some of the money that it lost on the Chrysler adventure to investors.

Meanwhile, Toronto-Dominion Bank continues to push its way into the American market. The bank already has 1,300 branches on our shores, and the new acquisition of Chrysler Financial will make the company one of America’s largest auto lenders overnight. TD Bank says that it anticipates auto lending to grow from a $700 billion business right now to over $900 billion in just three short years. With Chrysler’s ever-improving stable of products, if true, that likely means that the bank will see cash start rolling through its doors in a big way.



More...