{"id":84,"date":"2009-02-28T00:42:24","date_gmt":"2009-02-28T05:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aafeders.com\/blog\/?p=84"},"modified":"2009-02-28T00:42:24","modified_gmt":"2009-02-28T05:42:24","slug":"ge-looks-to-sell-its-appliances-unit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.apartmentsupply.com\/index.php\/2009\/02\/28\/ge-looks-to-sell-its-appliances-unit\/","title":{"rendered":"G.E. Looks to Sell Its Appliances Unit"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to several sources…<\/strong><\/p>\n

General Electric<\/strong> is planning to sell its appliances division, one of the longest-running businesses in the conglomerate\u2019s 120-year history, a person briefed on the matter said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

A sale of the unit could fetch at least $5 billion, this person said. G.E. has hired Goldman Sachs<\/strong> to run the auction. Among the potential bidders are Haier<\/strong> of China, Bosch<\/strong> of Germany and LG<\/strong> of South Korea.<\/p>\n

The announcement comes as G.E.\u2019s chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt, tries to fix the troubled conglomerate, which has been hit unexpectedly hard by the credit market\u2019s decline and the slumping economy.<\/p>\n

Last month, G.E. reported first-quarter earnings that wildly missed analysts\u2019 estimates and its own projections. The stunning announcement, made more notable by G.E.\u2019s status as a bellwether of the economy, shook Wall Street\u2019s confidence. The company\u2019s shares fell 13 percent that day, its biggest one-day loss in two decades.<\/p>\n

The picture Mr. Immelt is painting of the economy augured pessimism for consumer businesses like appliances as well. \u2018\u2019We are in the toughest economy since 2001 and the worst housing crisis since the Depression,’\u2019 he told shareholders last month.<\/p>\n

Since then, Mr. Immelt has vowed to cut $3 billion in costs at the company.<\/p>\n

Though the appliance business comprises a small portion of G.E.\u2019s $173 billion in annual revenue, divorcing it from the company would carry great historical import. Since it began selling appliances in 1907, the division has grown to more than $7 billion in annual revenue as it sells a wide range of products, including refrigerators, microwaves and dishwashers. Among the appliances it has introduced are the room air-conditioner (1930), the combined washer-dryer unit (1954) and the toaster oven (1956).<\/p>\n

Yet despite its huge agglomeration of businesses, G.E. has sought to slim down recently, cutting loose even those units that hold sentimental value for the company. Last year, it sold its plastics business \u2013 where both Mr. Immelt and his predecessor, John F. Welch Jr., worked early in their careers \u2013 to Sabic<\/strong>, the big Saudi Arabian industrials company, for $11.6 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to several sources… General Electric is planning to sell its appliances division, one of the longest-running businesses in the conglomerate\u2019s 120-year history, a person briefed on the matter said Wednesday. A sale of the unit could fetch at least $5 billion, this person said. G.E. has hired Goldman Sachs to run the auction. Among … Continue reading G.E. Looks to Sell Its Appliances Unit<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[66,91,168],"class_list":["post-84","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appliances","tag-appliance","tag-business-sale","tag-general-electric"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.apartmentsupply.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.apartmentsupply.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.apartmentsupply.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.apartmentsupply.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.apartmentsupply.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.apartmentsupply.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.apartmentsupply.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.apartmentsupply.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.apartmentsupply.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}