According to news reports rolling in now and earlier today, GE has been found to have shortlisted buyers for Japan’s commercial finance operations. GE has indeed shortlisted a few Japanese firm including Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. to name a few. The shortlist comes in regards to the potential buyers being named for GE’s commercial-finance operations. These firms and a few more were carefully selected by GE for their strong knowledge on the subject and familiarity with the business.
The first bids for the business were due on September 4th of this year, which was quite recent as a matter of fact. The leasing units of Mitsubishi and Sumitomo, in addition to a leasing company involved, Mizuho Financial Group Inc., will own a stake and have passed through the first round. GE plans to select a buyer later on this year and reports suggest the deal could be worth more than $5 billion.
GE is really looking to get back to what they know and do best, and with that they are purging the unnecessary parts of their current business structure. Earlier this year you may have seen reports from Jeff Immelt, the Chief Executive at GE. Jeff went into much detail in those conferences and meetings regarding the selling off and slimming down of GE in order to focus more intently on their core products and services. He also mentioned the selling off of the $500 billion in assets that is held by GE Capital. It would seem they are on the right track for this mission as they have already sold off the GE Capital Bank online deposit platform to Goldman Sachs for $16 billion in August of this year.
This deal is no doubt a big one as GE has many operations in Japan that span over many divisions. GE is currently directly involved in industrial companies working with large scale machinery and production equipment as well as vendor financing operations, and more. Morgan Stanley is leading the charge on the sale of the Japanese leasing business as well.
I wonder what GE’s next move will be. I’ll be sure to stay up to date on new developments with the company both here in the U.S. and abroad. Feel free to send in any new information using the contact form and i’ll take a look.