GE Seeks Escape From Too-Big-to-Fail Tag as Revamp Nears End
- Request follows deals to sell $160 billion in finance assets
- Removing designation would free up capital, ease oversight
GE Requests End of Too-Big-to-Fail Designation
This article is for subscribers only.
General Electric Co. asked U.S. regulators to drop its designation as a too-big-to-fail financial institution, one of the central goals of Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt’s decision a year ago to sell the bulk of the lending business.
Shedding the label would free up billions of dollars in capital and remove restrictive oversight while underscoring a dramatic overhaul of the industrial giant’s operations. Immelt has pulled GE almost entirely away from the banking business built up under former CEO Jack Welch and renewed the company’s focus on making heavy-duty machinery.