Months after the spinoff of its transportation unit and its subsequent merger with Wabtec(WAB), GE(GE) has sold 25.2 million shares of Wabtec stock in a public offering at $73.50 per share. The offering had originally been set at 12.5 million to 14.375 million shares but was quickly upsized, presumably due to robust interest. GE continues to own around… Read More »
There’s a lot of news to report as GE(GE) completes its spinoff of GE Transportation on Monday, February 25 and merges it with Wabtec(WAB) immediately thereafter. As we theorized last week, the bulked-up Wabtec will be added to the S&P 500, replacing Goodyear Tire(GT). Goodyear will take Wabtec’s place in the S&P MidCap 400, making this a neat… Read More »
GE (GE) is set to close the restructured merger agreement for its transportation business with Wabtec (WAB) on February 25th. As a result, the 25th will also be the distribution date for GE’s transportation business spin off which will be immediately merged into Wabtec. The end result will be a more vertically integrated freight car business that is… Read More »
With GE’s (GE) share price in freefall and concerns about its debt levels, the company began offloading assets left and right. One disposal arranged by short lived CEO John Flannery was the spinoff of its transportation business via Reverse Morris Trust by subsequently merging it with Wabtec (WAB) to form a leading freight car powerhouse. Manufacturing and servicing all done in… Read More »
General Electric(GE) announced the results of its exchange offer for Synchrony Financial(SYF) common stock this morning. The exchange, which ended last night at midnight, was oversubscribed by 3.2 times, with “2,149,128,195 shares of GE common stock were validly tendered and not validly withdrawn.” The company will “accept 671,366,809 of the tendered shares in exchange for the 705,270,833 shares… Read More »
The question of whether to exchange their GE(GE) stock to receive Synchrony Financial(SYF) at a 7% discount is a question weighing heavily on the minds of many GE shareholders. One investor decided to Ask Matt what to do. Who is Matt? Apparently, Matt is “USA TODAY markets reporter Matt Krantz [who] answers a different reader question every weekday.”… Read More »
The Federal Reserve formally approved Synchrony Financial’s (SYF) application to become a publicly traded savings & loan holding company. The approval is a key regulatory milestone for the company and its completion will pave the way for GE (GE) to finish separating the business via exchange offer. As its recent earnings report highlighted, GE has shifted its focus… Read More »
General Electric(GE) is the prototypical conglomerate. It is welll known for its turbines, its locomotives, its jet engines, and its finance division. Chastened by the financial crisis which GE entered as a finance company with some industrial assets attached, CEO Jeff Immelt has been on a multiyear mission to shift the company’s focus back to its industrial operations.… Read More »
Breakups seem to have become activists’ favorite tools when faced with an underperforming company. Following John Paulson’s pressure to Hartford to spin off its life business, Highfields Capital has disclosed it is in talks with Genworth Financial(GNW) with options that may include a spinoff of its mortgage insurance business. Highfields, a Boston-based hedge fund still run by co-founder… Read More »