Monty Python to Project Hubble: Inside GE’s $200 Billion Renewal

The most sweeping transformation in General Electric Co.’s 123-year history was helped along by an unlikely tool: a noise-making cellphone app.

Aris Kekedjian, head dealmaker for GE’s lending arm, was hours away from an April deadline to sell $23 billion in real estate assets -- the centerpiece of a plan to jettison virtually all of its vast banking operations. To prod negotiators, Kekedjian pulled up an iPhone program that mimics a hotel call bell, ringing it each time they agreed to a point.