NEW HAVEN, Conn. — General Electric announced Thursday that it wants to spin off its iconic lighting and appliance businesses, the latest aggressive move by one of the world’s largest companies to reshape its portfolio to focus on faster-growth businesses.
The consumer and industrial businesses have 50,000 of GE’s 300,000 employees and had sales of $13.3 billion and a profit of slightly more than $1 billion last year.
Fairfield-based GE, which invented the incandescent light bulb in 1979, announced in May that it planned to sell or spin off its appliance business but now says it is looking to spin off the entire unit, which includes household appliances such as dishwashers and clothes dryers as well as lighting, motors and electrical distribution.
GE, an industrial, financial-services and media conglomerate, said it continues to explore all options for the consumer and industrial operations but believes it makes the most sense to spin off the entire unit to existing shareholders, keeping its leadership teams and employees intact. The company hopes to complete the move next year.
“As we explored our options for appliances, it became clear that the fastest, most efficient step we could take in completing the transformation of our industrial portfolio would be to focus on a possible spinoff of the entire unit,” GE chairman and chief executive Jeff Immelt said in a statement.
The spinoff would create a separate publicly traded company owned by GE shareholders.
“While the deal does not unlock value per se, it is a step toward improving the portfolio,” Citigroup analyst Jeffrey Srague wrote in a research note.
Last year, GE shed its underperforming plastics business by selling it to a Saudi Arabian company for $11.6 billion.
GE shares closed up 45 cents, or 1.7 percent, at $27.64.
