Goldman Projects 46-Cent EPS Gain in Q4 From Apple Card Transition

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. GS announced an agreement to end its long-standing partnership with Apple Inc. AAPL and transition the Apple Card program and associated accounts to JPMorgan JPM. This marks a significant step in Goldman's ongoing refocus away from consumer banking and toward its core institutional businesses.

The transaction is expected to increase Goldman’s fourth-quarter 2025 earnings per share (EPS) by 46 cents. This reflects the release of $2.48 billion in loan loss reserves recorded in provisions for credit losses, partially offset by a $2.26-billion reduction in net revenues related to markdowns on the outstanding credit card loan portfolio and contract termination obligations, as well as $38 million in associated expenses. JPMorgan expects to recognize a $2.2 billion provision for credit losses in the fourth quarter of 2025 related to the forward purchase commitment of the Apple Card portfolio. 

Under the terms of the agreement, Goldman will continue operating the Apple Card program while the transition to JPMorgan is expected to be completed over approximately 24 months. Until then, GS will continue to record regular business results from the portfolio. 

David Solomon, chairman and CEO of Goldman, stated, “This transaction substantially completes the narrowing of our focus in our consumer business.” “Alongside Apple, we built an award-winning program and created an innovative credit card that put consumers at the center. We look forward to continuing to support our customers during the transition to a new issuer as we focus on advancing the strategy we laid out for our core franchises in Global Banking & Markets and Asset & Wealth Management,” he added.

Goldman's exit from the Apple card comes in line with the bank pulling back from its consumer lending business, as it proved to be costlier than expected. Hence, the company embarked on a deliberate transformation to exit non-core consumer banking and double down on the divisions where Goldman maintains a clear competitive advantage. In sync with this, in the third quarter of 2025, GS completed the sale of its GM credit card business to Barclays. In 2024, Goldman completed the sale of GreenSky. In 2023, it sold its Personal Financial Management unit to Creative Planning and also sold all of Marcus’s loan portfolio, part of its broader retreat from consumer banking. 

These moves demonstrate a well-thought-out exit, allowing the company to reallocate capital and attention toward higher-margin, more scalable businesses like Global Banking and Markets and the asset and wealth management divisions.

Goldman’s Price Performance, Valuation, & Estimates

GS shares have gained 70.3% in the past year compared with the industry’s growth of 43.6%. 

Price Performance

From a valuation standpoint, Goldman trades at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 16.88X, above the industry’s average of 15.35X.

Price-to-Earnings F12M

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for GS’s 2025 and 2026 earnings implies year-over-year rallies of 20.9% and 12.9%, respectively. Estimates for both years have been revised upward over the past seven days.

Estimate Revision Trend

Goldman currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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