General Electric Co. continued its staccato restructuring, as the Fairfield-based conglomerate announced plans to spin off its consumer and industrial divisions, having announced in May plans to sell off the division”™s GE Appliances business.
Besides GE Appliances, the divisions include GE Lighting ”“ a business whose heritage is grounded in GE founder Thomas Edison”™s invention of the incandescent light bulb.
Under Jeff Immelt, GE”™s current CEO, the company has undertaken a wholesale restructuring as the company”™s stock dropped 28 percent in the first half of 2008.
The company is the second-largest employer in Fairfield County with more than 6,000 employees, half of them with Norwalk-based GE Commercial Finance and many of the rest performing headquarters administrative functions.
In the second quarter, GE net earnings dropped 6 percent from a year ago to $5.1 billion, despite an 11 percent gain in revenue to $46.9 billion.
GE Commercial Finance had a 7 percent boost in profits to $1.4 billion, as revenue climbed 14 percent to $9.3 billion. During the quarter, GE Commercial Finance reached a deal to acquire most of the CitiCapital equipment-finance business of Citigroup Inc., adding $13.4 billion in assets and some 1,400 employees.
GE Money, which relocated its titular headquarters this year from Stamford to the United Kingdom, had a 9 percent drop in net income to $1.05 billion, though revenue increased 6 percent to $6.6 billion. Earlier this month, GE announced the sale of its consumer credit business in Japan to Shinsei Bank, with the transaction valued at $5.4 billion.
After the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allowed a GE Healthcare factory in Utah to resume shipping surgical robotic devices after an FDA-ordered shutdown, GE Healthcare recovered with an 8 percent rise in profits and an 11 percent lift in sales.
GE Energy led all business units with 37 percent and 35 percent gains in revenue and profits, respectively.
