General Electric (GE) recently announced it is in an agreement to sell its home appliances business to Swedish white-goods group Electrolux for $3.3 billion.
It’s hard to imagine GE, a household name for more than a century, leaving the consumer appliance industry.
This deal is a major shake-up in the home appliance industry, pairing the second- and third-largest companies in the industry.
Under the deal, GE has a long-term agreement with Electrolux to keep using the GE Appliances brand alongside its own Frigidaire brand in an attempt to leverage the company’s long history.
Although the boards of directors of both companies have approved the transaction, it is subject to closing conditions and regulatory approvals, and is due to close next year.
Electrolux said the acquisition, the single biggest deal it has made, represented “an attractive strategic fit” for its operations in North America, expected to generate “significant synergies” particularly in procurement and day-to-day running of the combined business.
GE has sold devices to people for its entire 122-year history, starting with the light bulb, which was invented by company founder Thomas Edison. The lighting division will stay, but it’s just a tiny part of GE. Now GE will sell its products almost exclusively to other companies.
GE is the only remaining member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, first calculated in 1896. But, GE has frustrated shareholders by underperforming both the Dow and broader stock indexes for much of the last decade.
There was no mention of what would happen to FirstBuild which is a partnership between GE Appliances and Local Motors to create a new model for the appliance industry and manufacture those designs in its Microfactory.
My trip to the Monogram Experience Center last October. Being able to cook on
the appliances is an incredible educational tool and meeting designers and dealers
from around the country was very insightful.
