Capital One Financial Corp is close to acquiring General Electric (GE) Co.’s healthcare finance unit, GE Capital Healthcare Financial Services, for over $10 billion, according to a recent report by Reuters.
Nothing has been confirmed by either side.
"As a matter of practice, we do not comment on market rumors or speculation,” Capital One said in a statement.
If the deal goes through, it would be a continuation of GE’s recent trend of unloading various GE Capital assets as it focuses more on the industrial side of its business. In April, for example, the company sold a $23 billion portfolio of office buildings and commercial real estate debt to Wells Fargo and Blackstone Group.
GE says that by 2018, this new plan will result in 90% of the company’s earnings being generated by its industrial businesses. In 2014, that number was 58%.
“We are completing another definitive and important move to reshape GE for the future,” Jeff Immelt, GE Chairman and CEO, said in a statement earlier this year. “GE is a fast-growth, high-tech industrial company, built on the capabilities of the GE Store ... our best days are ahead.”
As The Wall Street Journal wrote in June, GE does have a separate healthcare unit it will be keeping, which is a division of the company’s equipment finance business. That particular unit finances the purchase of imaging equipment by various clinics and hospitals.