General Electric Sells GE Capital Bank's Online Platform to Goldman Sachs -- Update

By Angela Chen 

General Electric Co. has agreed to sell GE Capital Bank's online deposit platform and about $16 billion in deposits to Goldman Sachs Bank USA.

The amount includes about $8 billion in online deposit accounts and $8 billion in brokered certificates of deposit.

The transaction "advances GE Capital's new strategic direction by facilitating closure of one of our two U.S. bank charters, which we believe will help us become less systemically important," said Keith Sherin, chief executive of GE Capital.t

General Electric earlier announced its intention t o sell roughly $200 billion in GE Capital operations.

GE's commercial lending and leasing business supplies credit to "middle market" companies, such as Midwestern grocery-store chains and Wendy's restaurant franchises.

While the company has committed to shrinking GE Capital in the wake of the financial crisis, it has viewed a smaller, safer banking business as an integral part of a conglomerate better known for its jet engines, power turbines and CT scanners.

Earlier this week, GE said it would sell its health-care financing business to Capital One Financial Corp for $9 billion. As part of the deal, Capital One will get $8.5 billion worth of GE's existing health-care loans.

The deal is also the latest piece of GE's dismantling of its once-massive financial-services business.

With the sales, GE will have sold roughly $78 billion of financial assets toward its goal of shrinking its banking business by $100 billion this year. Investors have urged the company to return to its industrial roots amid a wave of federal regulations and changing market conditions that have weighed on returns.

In July, the Federal Reserve gave General Electric Co.'s finance unit a temporary reprieve from having to face the central bank's strictest regulations, a nod to how GE has already announced plans to dramatically shrink the business.

The Fed's rule will delay until 2018 the moment when GE Capital would have to start preparing for the Fed's annual "stress tests," maintain higher capital levels and add independent directors to its board, among other regulations. GE Capital will still have to comply with basic capital and liquidity rules starting Jan. 1, 2016, thresholds that the company has said it has already met.

Shares of GE have increased about 2% this year through Thursday's close.

Write to Angela Chen at [e-mail]

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