General Electric Offering Three-, 10-Year Debt in Benchmark Sale

General Electric Co. (GE), the biggest maker of power-generation equipment with $32 billion of bonds maturing in the rest of 2012, plans to sell three- and 10-year notes.

The company intends to issue new 10-year securities and additional 1.625 percent debentures due in July 2015 through its GE Capital unit for general corporate purposes, according to a person familiar with the offering who asked not to be identified because terms aren’t set. The deal will be of benchmark size, typically at least $500 million, the person said.

GE’s $1.2 billion of 2015 notes, which priced to yield 125 basis points more than similar-maturity Treasuries when they were sold on June 27, traded at 102 cents on the dollar last week to yield 0.94 percent with a 64.7 basis-point spread, according to Trace, the bond-price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

The bonds may be rated A1 by Moody’s Investors Service, its fifth-highest level, and AA+ by Standard & Poor’s, that company’s second-highest grade, the person said.

Bank of America Corp., Barclays Plc, Citigroup Inc. and Credit Suisse Group AG are managing the Fairfield, Connecticut- based company’s sale of the 10-year bonds, the person said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Charles Mead in New York at cmead11@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alan Goldstein at agoldstein5@bloomberg.net