Robert Lime

Robert Lime focuses on the firm’s Retailer Services practice area where he advises retailers and third party providers of retail credit programs on a full range of customer financing and payment strategies, such as private label credit cards, co-branded credit cards, stored value gift cards, loyalty programs, and the like. Robert has advised some of the nation’s largest retailers, including JCPenney, Circuit City Stores, Lowe’s Companies, Gap and its Old Navy and Banana Republic brands, and Williams-Sonoma, as well as several of the largest retail card issuers.

Robert has been involved with some of the highest-profile retail card industry events including advising both JCPenney and Circuit City on the sale of their in-house credit operations. In the case of JCPenney, he first supported a review of the internal credit card issuing business and subsequently negotiated the sale of its $4 billion credit card portfolio and related assets to GE Capital, including a ten-year partnership agreement. For Circuit City, Robert negotiated the sale of its $2 billion credit card portfolio and related assets to Bank One, including a seven-year partnership agreement. Additionally, he has advised various credit card issuers on the buy-side, including Household International on its purchase of Saks Incorporated’s $1.2 billion credit operation.

Robert’s other retail clients include leading in-store, Internet, and catalog retailers in the specialty apparel, home furnishings, home improvement, electronics, and department store sectors. He has helped these clients with many aspects of their branded payment strategies (both credit cards and stored value cards), including reviewing the performance of their current program/provider and providing benchmarking analyses to support findings, assessing the merits of a change in strategy (e.g., in-house vs. outsourced issuing strategy), negotiating new contracts and renewals with third party providers, and other related matters.

Robert also provides support to most of the firm’s other practice areas, including the Issuing practice, which focuses on general-purpose credit card issuing strategies. His client work has focused on analyzing current strategies, performing diagnostics on various types of businesses, developing strategic business plans, completing industry analyses, and negotiating outsourcing relationships and corresponding partnership agreements.

Furthermore, Robert has worked with various classes of assets, including sub-prime, and numerous partnership/joint venture structures. He has authored several articles for publication on the private label credit card business and completed surveys related to the industry.
Prior to joining First Annapolis, Robert worked in various strategic planning, finance and business development roles for The Midland Life Insurance Company, Bank One, and Eastman Kodak Company.

Robert received his M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where he graduated with Distinction. He also holds a B.S. in finance from Miami University.