Immelt cites suitors for GE Appliances

General Electric Co.”™s chief executive officer named Korea-based LG Electronics Inc. as a leading bidder for GE Appliances, while mentioning China-based Haier Group Corp. as one of four other potential suitors.

The Fairfield-based company indicated last month it would consider buyout offers or a spinout of the division, which is based in Louisville, Ky., and had $7.2 billion in revenue last year.

In the first quarter, LG grabbed the leading market share for appliance sales in the U.S. at 23 percent, overtaking Whirlpool Corp. according to Stevenson Co., a Louisville market-research firm.

GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt also cited as potential bidders Sweden-based Electrolux AB Mexico-based Controladora Mabe SA and Turkey-based Arcelik A.S., according to reports quoting Immelt at a meeting late last month in Seoul.

In separate news, GE Money may sell off its Wizard mortgage unit in Australia, which operates under a franchise model.

Hospitality

Barbecue restaurant planned in Greenwich

Union Square Hospitality Group plans to open a Blue Smoke Chop House restaurant at the site of the former Howard Johnson”™s motel on East Putnam Avenue in Greenwich.

It is the pit-barbecue restaurant”™s first location outside Manhattan, where USHG is based. The company owns several New York City eateries, including its flagship Union Square CafÃ©.

In the January issue of Connecticut Magazine, readers chose The Cookhouse”™s locations in Darien and New Milford, respectively, as the top barbecue restaurants in Fairfield County and Connecticut.

Human resources

Rell vetoes wage hike

Gov. M. Jodi Rell vetoed a proposed increase in Connecticut”™s minimum wage, saying the bill could cost the very jobs of the low-income workers it is meant to help.

The Connecticut General Assembly had approved increasing Connecticut”™s minimum wage from $7.65 an hour to $8 next January and to $8.25 in January 2010.

“Businesses have told me that they would not be hiring if the wage hike went into effect,” Rell said, in written comments after issuing her veto, adding the bill would add $700 in costs for each worker employed at the minimum wage.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, as of July Connecticut will have the seventh-highest minimum wage in the U.S. Washington leads the nation at $8.07 an hour, with the state”™s rate pegged to inflation indexes.

Federal law requires a minimum wage of $5.85 an hour, with farms and a few other industries exempted.