Story by The Wall Street Journal
General Electric Co. is close to selling all or part of its giant real estate holdings, people familiar with the matter said, as the conglomerate moves more aggressively to shrink its finance business.
GE’s real estate portfolio holds around $30 billion worth of investments in office buildings, apartment complexes and other commercial property. The company is in talks with Blackstone and Wells Fargo for various parts of the portfolio, and a deal could be announced soon, the people said.
Precise terms of any deal couldn’t immediately be learned, but if one closes, it would likely to be both large and highly symbolic. GE Capital’s real-estate business is at the heart of investors’ concerns that lending is too risky for the conglomerate. Those concerns have weighed heavily on GE’s stock, which remains stuck around $25, well below the $30 level it traded at before the financial crisis.
