(Bloomberg) -- Carlyle Group Inc. and KKR & Co. won the auction for a $10 billion student-loan portfolio from Discover Financial Services, according to people familiar with the matter. 

The private equity firms made a 50-50 bid, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the details haven’t been announced publicly. Spokespeople for Carlyle, KKR and Discover declined to comment. 

The bid beat a competing offer from Sixth Street, BlackRock Inc. and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, with the loan book selling above par, according to the Financial Times, which reported on the transaction earlier Wednesday. Discover had been looking for a buyer for the business since last year and said that it would stop accepting student-loan applications in February. 

The deal is a victory for Carlyle as it seeks to be a bigger player in asset-backed finance, and it’s the largest deal ever for the team focused on that corner of credit. Its credit arm has taken stakes in solar financing provider Sungage Financial and student-lending solutions platform Monogram — deals that Carlyle expects will help make it easier for the Washington-based firm to originate loans backed by hard assets and all kinds of collateral.

Capital One Financial Corp. agreed to buy Discover in a $35 billion deal announced earlier this year, after the Riverwoods, Illinois-based firm had already made the student-loan book sale public.

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