GE aims to shed more assets

Article Excerpt

GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. $15 (New York symbol GE; Manufacturing sector; Shares o/s: 8.7 billion; Market cap: $130.5 billion; Takeover Target Rating: Lowest; Dividend yield: 3.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.ge.com) is a leading maker of industrial machinery. Activist investment firm Trian Partners, controlled by Nelson Peltz, owns 1% of GE. Trian recently won a position on GE’s board of directors. In the past few years, GE has shrunk the size of its GE Capital financing business. However, that division still holds about 300,000 long-term health-care insurance policies. Payouts on those policies are now exceeding their premiums. As a result, GE Capital will have to set aside an additional $15 billion to cover those extra liabilities over the next seven years: $3 billion in the first quarter of 2018, and $2 billion each year from 2019 to 2024. Meantime, GE still plans to move ahead with the plan to narrow its focus to three main businesses: electrical power equipment, aviation, and health care. The…