Merrill announced last week it was selling the lion's share of its consumer finance unit, Merrill Lynch Capital, to GE Capital, the financial unit of General Electric.
Merrill announced last week it was selling the lion's share of its consumer finance unit, Merrill Lynch Capital, to GE Capital, the financial unit of General Electric (nyse: GE - news - people ).
Last year, General Electric paid no federal income taxes due to write downs from previous losses from its financial arm GE Capital during the 2008 credit crisis.
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The firm's huge, opaque financial arm, GE Capital, was used as a top-up fund in case profits in the rest of the business fell below the consistent growth promised by Mr Welch.
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Additionally, increasing revenues in the energy infrastructure division have also helped GE to partially offset the impact of the financial crisis on its largest division, GE Capital.
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Call your local representative from a financial institution, such as GE Capital or Bank of America, and ask them to price a typical eighty- four month lease scenario with both five and seven year depreciation schedules.
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Among them: Heller Financial, set to be acquired by GE Capital, fell 6.5% after investors got spooked by Warren Buffett's pulling back an offer to buy financial services outfit Finova's junk bonds.
If the Treasury Department gets its way and imposes tougher scrutiny on nonbank financial institutions, GE's finance business might become even more of a capital sink instead of the cash fount it was when money was cheap.
There has been growing pressure on Mr Immelt to offload GE Capital, both from shareholders and now, it seems, judging by the proposed reforms of financial regulation announced on June 17th, from the government.
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That may well make being in financial services less attractive to its shareholders, who have already successfully pressed for a paring down of GE Capital, partly in response to the firm's plunging share price during Mr Immelt's eight-year reign.
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