Baker Hughes Unveils Name, Board Changes Following GE Stock Sale

By Colin Kellaher

Baker Hughes, a GE Co. (BHGE) on Monday unveiled changes to its corporate name and its board after a series of transactions that dropped General Electric Co.'s (GE) voting power below 50%.

The Houston oilfield-services firm said it will rename itself Baker Hughes Co. and trade under the symbol BKR, dropping the construct it adopted with the 2017 merger with GE's oil and gas unit that left GE with a 62.5% stake.

Baker Hughes said GE has completed a secondary offering of 132.25 million shares, including full exercise by the underwriters of an overallotment option of 17.25 million shares.

The company also bought back about 11.9 million shares from GE, which said its stake in Baker Hughes had fallen below 40%.

As a result of the transactions, Baker Hughes said GE is now entitled to one board designee instead of five. The company said GE selected John Rice to remain as its designee, and that Jamie Miller and James Mulva will resign from the board.

Baker Hughes said Lorenzo Simonelli and W. Geoffrey Beattie will continue as directors, but not as GE designees.

GE has been selling its Baker Hughes stake to both exit the business and raise cash to pare its debt load, and GE executives have said they plan to eventually wind down the holdings.

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 16, 2019 12:11 ET (16:11 GMT)

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