OREANDA-NEWS. GE (NYSE: GE) announced today that it has completed the sale of GE Capital’s U.S. restaurant financing assets, through a series of separate transactions with regional buyers first announced in June 2016.  These combined transactions represent an ending net investment (ENI) of approximately $1.3 billion, as of the end of the second quarter of 2016.

Through the most recent transaction, which closed Friday, September 16, First Horizon National Corporation, a Tennessee-based bank, acquired assets in the Southwest and Southeast.  In previously closed transactions, Wintrust Financial Corporation, an Illinois-based bank, acquired assets in the Midwest and part of the West, and Sterling National Bank, headquartered in New York, acquired assets in the East.

“We’re pleased to complete the sale of our U.S. restaurant financing assets to a group of strong regional owners who intend to grow these relationships,” said Rich Laxer, GE Capital President and CEO. “As we continue to execute on our strategy to significantly reduce the size of GE Capital, these transactions represent the last operating platform for sale in North America.” 

As previously announced, GE is focusing on its high-value industrial businesses and is selling most of GE Capital’s assets. GE will retain its financing verticals that relate directly to GE’s industrial businesses. Since the April 2015 announcement, GE Capital has signed agreements for the sale of approximately US$192 billion of businesses and has closed approximately US$172 billion of those transactions. GE Capital plans to have largely completed the process of selling approximately $200 billion of businesses by the end of 2016 and believes it is on track to deliver approximately US$35 billion of dividends to GE under this plan. 

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GE (NYSE: GE) is the world’s Digital Industrial Company, transforming industry with software-defined machines and solutions that are connected, responsive and predictive. GE is organized around a global exchange of knowledge, the "GE Store," through which each business shares and accesses the same technology, markets, structure and intellect. Each invention further fuels innovation and application across our industrial sectors. With people, services, technology and scale, GE delivers better outcomes for customers by speaking the language of industry.