• Agreement includes GE Capital Commercial Distribution Finance, Vendor Finance and Corporate Finance Businesses
  • Transaction Nearly Completes Reduction of U.S. Lending and Leasing Businesses
  • GE Capital Total Announced Dispositions to Date Passes $126 Billion
  • GE Continues Transformation to More Focused Digital Industrial Company

GE (NYSE: GE) has reached an agreement to sell GE Capital’s global Commercial Distribution Finance, North American Vendor Finance and Corporate Finance platforms to Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE: WFC). The sale includes ending net investment (ENI) of approximately $30 billion (about $32 billion of assets) and approximately 3,000 employees. It is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2016. Other terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“This is our largest transaction to date and a critical step in our efforts to reduce the size of GE Capital,” said Keith Sherin, GE Capital chairman and CEO. “Since our April 10 announcement, we’ve signed more than $126 billion in transactions, which is over 60 percent of our overall plan, and are on track to become less than 10 percent of GE’s earnings as the company transitions to a more focused digital industrial company.

“We’re very pleased to sell this significant piece of our business to Wells Fargo, a respected industry leader who is committed to helping our customers grow and succeed. Wells Fargo’s strong operations, risk and regulatory expertise, combined with their customer focus, will allow them to seamlessly integrate our businesses,” Sherin added.

The transaction includes the leadership, employees and platforms of GE Capital Commercial Distribution Finance (CDF) and GE Capital Vendor Finance.

CDF serves customers in 60 countries providing customized inventory financing to fund the flow of finished durable goods from manufacturers to dealers. The business operates globally in six core industries: marine, recreational vehicles, motorsports, outdoor products, technology, electronics and appliances.

Vendor Finance is a leading provider of private label and co-branded programs for OEMs, dealers and end users across four core industries in the U.S. and Canada: office imaging, construction, material handling and technology.

The transaction also includes essentially all of GE Capital Corporate Finance’s portfolio of senior secured loans and leases for middle market companies across the U.S. and Canada, as well as some employees. Corporate Finance has 10 specialized equipment lending and leasing verticals, with particular expertise in food and beverage, forestry, metals, restructuring and retail.

When completed, the transaction will contribute approximately $4.2 billion of capital to the overall target of approximately $35 billion of dividends expected to be paid to GE under the disposition plan (subject to regulatory approval). With this transaction, the total ENI for 2015 announced sales is more than $126 billion.

“We continue to execute quickly on our asset sales. With this transaction, GE Capital has only one significant platform remaining for sale in the U.S., our Franchise Finance unit with $5.5 billion of ENI. Once the U.S. transactions have closed and the split off of GE Capital’s retail finance business, Synchrony Financial, has occurred, GE Capital expects to file an application in 2016 for de-designation as a Systemically Important Financial Institution as its footprint in the U.S. will be significantly reduced. Globally, GE Capital expects to be substantially done with its exit strategy by the end of 2016,” said Sherin.

As previously announced, GE is embarking on a strategy to create a simpler, more valuable company by reducing the size of its financial businesses through the sale of most GE Capital assets and by focusing on continued investment and growth in its world-class industrial businesses. GE will retain the financing businesses that relate directly to GE’s industrial businesses.

The transaction with Wells Fargo is subject to customary closing conditions. Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse provided financial advice to GE and Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP provided legal advice.

About GE

GE (NYSE: GE) is the world’s Digital Industrial Company, transforming industry with software-defined machines and solutions that are connected, responsive and predictive. GE is organized around a global exchange of knowledge, the "GE Store," through which each business shares and accesses the same technology, markets, structure and intellect. Each invention further fuels innovation and application across our industrial sectors. With people, services, technology and scale, GE delivers better outcomes for customers by speaking the language of industry. www.ge.com

GE’s Investor Relations website at www.ge.com/investor and our corporate blog at www.gereports.com, as well as GE’s Facebook page and Twitter accounts, including @GE_Reports, contain a significant amount of information about GE, including financial and other information for investors. GE encourages investors to visit these websites from time to time, as information is updated and new information is posted.

Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements:

This document contains "forward-looking statements" – that is, statements related to future, not past, events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address our expected future business and financial performance and financial condition, and often contain words such as "expect," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "believe," "seek," "see," "will," "would," or "target." Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain, such as statements about our announced plan to reduce the size of our financial services businesses, including expected cash and non-cash charges associated with this plan; expected income; earnings per share; revenues; organic growth; margins; cost structure; restructuring charges; cash flows; return on capital; capital expenditures, capital allocation or capital structure; dividends; and the split between Industrial and GE Capital earnings. For us, particular uncertainties that could cause our actual results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements include: obtaining (or the timing of obtaining) any required regulatory reviews or approvals or any other consents or approvals associated with our announced plan to reduce the size of our financial services businesses; our ability to complete incremental asset sales as part of that plan in a timely manner (or at all) and at the prices we have assumed; changes in law, economic and financial conditions, including interest and exchange rate volatility, commodity and equity prices and the value of financial assets, including the impact of these conditions on our ability to sell or the value of incremental assets to be sold as part of our announced plan to reduce the size of our financial services businesses as well as other aspects of that plan; the impact of conditions in the financial and credit markets on the availability and cost of GECC's funding, and GECC's exposure to counterparties; the impact of conditions in the housing market and unemployment rates on the level of commercial and consumer credit defaults; pending and future mortgage loan repurchase claims and other litigation claims in connection with WMC, which may affect our estimates of liability, including possible loss estimates; our ability to maintain our current credit rating and the impact on our funding costs and competitive position if we do not do so; the adequacy of our cash flows and earnings and other conditions which may affect our ability to pay our quarterly dividend at the planned level or to repurchase shares at planned levels; GECC's ability to pay dividends to GE at the planned level, which may be affected by GECC's cash flows and earnings, financial services regulation and oversight, and other factors; our ability to convert pre-order commitments/wins into orders; the price we realize on orders since commitments/wins are stated at list prices; customer actions or developments such as early aircraft retirements or reduced energy demand and other factors that may affect the level of demand and financial performance of the major industries and customers we serve; the effectiveness of our risk management framework; the impact of regulation and regulatory, investigative and legal proceedings and legal compliance risks, including the impact of financial services regulation and litigation; adverse market conditions, timing of and ability to obtain required bank regulatory approvals, or other factors relating to us or Synchrony Financial that could prevent us from completing the Synchrony Financial split-off as planned; our capital allocation plans, as such plans may change including with respect to the timing and size of share repurchases, acquisitions, joint ventures, dispositions and other strategic actions; our success in completing, including obtaining regulatory approvals for, announced transactions, such as the proposed transactions and alliances with Alstom and Appliances and our announced plan and transactions to reduce the size of our financial services businesses, and our ability to realize anticipated earnings and savings; our success in integrating acquired businesses and operating joint ventures; the impact of potential information technology or data security breaches; and the other factors that are described in "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2014. These or other uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements.

This document includes certain forward-looking projected financial information that is based on current estimates and forecasts. Actual results could differ materially.

Investors:Matt Cribbins, +1 203-373-2424matthewg.cribbins@ge.comorMedia:GE Capital:Susan Bishop, +1 203-750-5362susan.bishop@ge.comorGE:Seth Martin, +1 203-572-3567seth.martin@ge.com

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