New York, Mar 10 (EFE) .- The US group General Electric (GE) confirmed on Wednesday the sale of its aircraft rental business to the Irish company AerCap and the future closure of its GE Capital unit, its loan business that came close to bankrupting the company during the 2008 financial crisis.
The operation, which had already been advanced by The Wall Street Journal, will involve the merger of GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) with AerCap, which will create by far the largest aircraft rental company in the world.
GECAS has more than 1,600 aircraft and assets valued at almost $ 36 billion, while AerCap has a fleet of about 1,400 aircraft.
In a statement, GE explained that the agreement values GECAS at more than 30,000 million dollars, for which it will receive a cash compensation of 24,000 million and 46% of the shares of the new company.
GE announced that it will use the proceeds of this sale to reduce its debts and that, once the operation is closed, what remains of the subsidiary GE Capital will be integrated into the core operations of the group.
GECAS is the most important part of GE Capital, the large loan business of the US conglomerate, which became one of the largest in the United States and was on the verge of bankrupting the company during the financial crisis of 2008. .
“Today marks GE’s transformation into a more focused, simple and robust industrial company,” CEO Lawrence Culp said in a note.
In recent years, GE has sold numerous assets to pay off its debt and focus on its industrial operations.
The conglomerate returned to net profits in 2020, earning 5,546 million dollars, after losing 4,972 million in the previous year and despite the fact that its total income was reduced by 16%.
Shares of GE, after years of decline, have partially recovered lately, but this Wednesday they fell sharply following their most recent announcements, which include a reduction in the number of their shares.
At the end of the session on Wall Street, their titles fell 5.36%.
– .
