ge earnings will be good, page-3

Brian, looks like no earnings suprise according to analysts. But GE is selling off its appliance division:



Shinsei to Buy GE's Consumer Finance Units in Japan (Update1)

By Takahiko Hyuga

July 11 (Bloomberg) -- Shinsei Bank Ltd., the first Japanese bank controlled by foreign investors, agreed to buy General Electric Co.'s Japan consumer lending operations for 580 billion yen ($5.4 billion).

Shinsei will buy GE's Tokyo-based Lake unit and its mortgage-loan and credit-card businesses, the bank said in a statement today.

GE's Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt, under pressure to revive shares after announcing a surprise first-quarter profit drop in April, is disposing of as much as $100 billion of financial assets. Japan's consumer lending industry has been in decline since a 2006 crackdown on interest rates and collection practices by the country's government and courts.

Tokyo-based Shinsei fell 3 percent to close at 358 yen in local trading before the announcement, following news reports that the bank was in final talks with GE. The reports cited unidentified people familiar with the negotiations.

Lake, which makes unsecured personal loans to individuals, has about 650 billion yen in outstanding credits, according to estimates released by Promise Co., Japan's second-largest consumer lender by market value.

The acquisition would give Shinsei a lending business with 2.2 million new customers and 1,138 branches, according to today's statement.

GE's Earnings

Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE reports results today and has forecast earnings of 53 cents to 55 cents a share in the second quarter, reflecting the reduced 2008 earnings target Immelt announced in April. The average of 15 analysts' estimates in a Bloomberg survey is 54 cents a share, unchanged from a year earlier. GE shares have dropped 25 percent this year.

Shinsei, the first Japanese lender controlled by overseas investors, is expanding into an industry that has been shrinking since Japan approved legislation in 2006 capping the interest rates consumer lenders can charge at 20 percent, down from 29 percent previously.

The nation's four biggest consumer finance companies posted losses totaling 1.7 trillion yen in the year ended March 2007 after making provisions for potential refund claims by borrowers who paid excessive fees and interest.

Selling Bonds

Three of the four lenders have sold convertible bonds this year to raise capital. Promise fell the most in six years on July 9 after scaling back a convertible bond sale by 30 percent, citing ``unstable'' markets.

Aiful Corp., Japan's biggest consumer lender by assets, plunged 11 percent on June 25 after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. said in a report the lender's parent may be insolvent. Aiful denied it has funding difficulties and later said it may sue Lehman.

Shinsei's existing consumer-finance units Shinki and Aplus Co. returned to profit in the year ended March 31 after both posted losses the previous year.

Since the beginning of the year, GE has agreed to sell its corporate charge card unit to American Express Co. for $1.1 billion. It agreed to swap GE Money units in Germany and the U.K. to Spain's Banco Santander SA in exchange for Italian commercial lender Interbanca SpA, which is valued at 1 billion euros ($1.58 billion). GE last year sold U.S. subprime unit WMC Mortgage and put its Japanese consumer business on the block.

In May, the company said it may divest its Australian home mortgage unit Wizard as loan growth slows after four interest- rate increases since August. The unit may be sold or moved into a joint venture or take on a partner, Mike Cutter, GE Money's chief executive officer for Australia, said at the time.

Profit Decline

In April, GE posted a 12 percent decline in first-quarter profit from continuing operations to $4.36 billion. The company cited financial market turmoil that cut the value of investments and thwarted end-of-quarter dealmaking.

GE has done business in Japan since 1886, when it provided electric generators to a government printing factory. It entered the local consumer finance market by acquiring Minebea Shinpan Co. in 1994. Four years later, the unit bought Lake's personal loan business.

GE sold its Japanese life insurance unit to American International Group Inc. in 2003.

To contact the reporter on this story: Takahiko Hyuga in Tokyo at [email protected]