GE GE Aerospace

By Josh Beckerman 

General Electric Co., which is actively selling GE Capital assets to focus more on core industrial activities, announced two deals for railroad services operations that have been part of GE Capital.

The conglomerate agreed to sell its tank car fleet assets and railcar repair facilities to Marmon Holdings Inc., with part of the deal closing on Wednesday and the rest slated for a fourth-quarter closing. Diversified industrial organization Marmon is part of Berkshire Hathaway Co.

Wells Fargo & Co. will buy the railcar leasing business, a deal expected to close in the first quarter of 2016.

Terms of the sales weren't disclosed.

In April, GE Chief Executive Jeff Immelt said the company would largely disband GE Capital, the collection of lending businesses that once generated half of the company's profit. While GE Capital is still profitable, Mr. Immelt said its returns have been pressured in part by federal regulations put in place after the financial crisis.

GE said Sept. 10 that Bank of Montreal will buy GE Capital's transportation-finance business in the U.S. and Canada.

Generally, GE's divestitures of portfolios or business units are selling at par or slightly above par because they are performing assets and not distressed. They are also coming into the market with a lot of demand from an array of financial firms that don't have many other buying opportunities.

GE's announced asset sales for the year to date have reached $95 billion. In July, the company increased its 2015 target for GE Capital asset sales to the range of $120 billion to $150 million, up from $100 billion.

Wells Fargo Chief Financial Officer John Shrewsberry said in July that the bank was working "as closely as we can" with GE, especially for certain pieces of GE Capital's portfolio that "fit neatly with our expertise."

In April, Wells Fargo agreed to buy $9 billion in property loans from GE.

For the railcar leasing deal, Wells Fargo doesn't need the formal regulatory approval that would be required if a bank is looking at acquiring or merging with a bank holding company. Still, there were supervisory discussions with regulators leading up to this deal including questions around internal controls and if the bank has enough capital for it, people familiar with the process said. This is common for such deals or even deal possibilities, these people said.

Earlier Wednesday, Mubadala GE Capital, a joint venture between GE Capital and Mubadala Development Co., said it would sell substantially all of its assets to MidCap Financial, a unit of Apollo Global Management LLC.

Emily Glazer contributed to this article

Write to Josh Beckerman at josh.beckerman@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 30, 2015 21:03 ET (01:03 GMT)

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