GE Reportedly Explores Hybrid Deals, Spinoffs In Strategic Review

(RTTNews) - General Electric Co. (GE) is exploring a public offering for one of its divisions and discussing hybrid deals with public companies to combine assets, the Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with the matter.

The possibilities include spinning off a division to investors or combining a division with a smaller public company in a way that avoids a big tax bill. Such moves would give the industrial conglomerate and its shareholders a chance to participate in the turnaround of struggling businesses rather than risk selling at inopportune times, the report said.

GE Transportation could be a model, the report said. GE is now unlikely to sell the business and is preparing for an initial public offering or spinoff of the division, which makes diesel freight locomotives, some of the people said. The unit could be merged with another firm that would leave GE investors in control of a new public company.