General Electric Co. shrugged off volatility in the financial services market to earn $5.5 billion in the third quarter, up 14 percent from a year ago.
GE revenue totaled $42.5 billion, up 12 percent.
The Fairfield-based company employs more than 6,000 people in Fairfield County, more than half of them in its GE Commercial Finance and GE Money divisions.
Stamford-based GE Money was the company”™s best-performing division in the third quarter with a 23 percent rise in revenue to $6.2 billion, and a 13 percent profit hike to $942 million.
Norwalk-based GE Commercial Finance earned $1.5 billion, up 12 percent, on revenue of $7 billion, a 17 percent increase. The division”™s GE Real Estate unit saw earnings increase 45 percent to $640 million and revenue 46 percent to $1.9 billion, making it the second-best performer after GE Industrial”™s oil and gas unit.
GE took a $1.4 billion charge during the quarter to account for the planned sale of its WMC mortgage entity in California and its personal loan business in Japan; and $600 million in restructuring charges.
The company realized a $1.8 billion after-tax benefit from the sale of Pittsfield, Mass.-based GE Plastics.
GE Healthcare, which is based in the United Kingdom, was the lone division to suffer a profit decline at 1 percent; Louisville, Ky.-based GE Industrial had a slight downfall in revenue.
GE bought back $6.3 billion of its stock in the third quarter, and plans to buy back $5.7 billion more in the current quarter.
Â
