Bloomberg Businessweek reported General Electric is targeting more than 10% earnings growth at its industrial and finance businesses in 2012.
According to the report, GE Capital is continuing to reduce risk by curbing lending and shrinking the portion of the parent company’s profit derived from the business. GE Capital has shrunk its ending net investment, a measure of a finance company’s assets, from $550 billion at the end of 2008 to $452 billion now, according to today’s presentation.
As reported, GE will only stay in finance markets where it has a “strong competitive advantage over banks,” Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt told shareholders during a meeting today in New York. “There are places where we have bone-crushing competitive advantage and the middle market is one of them.”
The report states GE will continue to target middle market clients with $10 million to $1 billion in revenue which are becoming the largest of the core businesses at GE Capital.