GE Strikes Deals to Sell Most of U.S. Restaurant Finance Assets -- Update

By Maria Armental 

General Electric Co. has struck three agreements to sell the bulk of its U.S. restaurant finance assets, the latest deal in U.S. restaurant loan portfolio as the industrial conglomerate continues to unwind its financial arm to focus on high-tech products, like jet engines and power turbines.

The sales would represent an ending net investment of about $1.4 billion at March 31, GE said.

Under the deals announced Monday, Tennessee-based First Horizon National Corp. would acquire about $637 million of restaurant franchise loans in the Southwest and Southeast, Illinois-based Wintrust Financial Corp. would acquire about $581 million in assets in the Midwest and part of the West, and New York-based Sterling National Bank would acquire the roughly $190 million Eastern U.S. restaurant franchise financing loan portfolio.

The deals are expected to close in the third quarter. The companies didn't disclose additional terms.

The rest of GE Capital's Western portfolio is to be sold separately, GE said.

Since GE announced plans last year to sell off about $200 billion of GE Capital, what was then a $500 billion lending business, it has signed agreements for about $180 billion and completed about $156 billion of those. The company, which expects to complete the process by the end of the year, said the breakup would ultimately allow it to send about $35 billion in dividends from GE Capital to the corporate parent, subject to regulatory approval.

Shares, down 6% this year, edged down 4 cents to $29.28 in after-hours trading.

Write to Maria Armental at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 27, 2016 19:05 ET (23:05 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.