GE To Sell Healthcare Loans, HFS Unit In Deal Worth About $9 Billion

General Electric Co. said Tuesday it has agreed to sell $8.5 billion of healthcare-related loans and its Healthcare Financial Services U.S. lending business to Capital One for about $9 billion. Separately, the company has agreed for another buyer to purchase about $600 million of HFS real estate equity investments. "We are on track to reduce our ending net investment (ENI) by $100 billion by the end of 2015 and expect to be substantially done with our exit strategy by the end of 2016," GE Capital Chief Executive Keith Sherin said in a statement. The deal is part of GE's strategy of focusing on core industrial businesses that involves selling most of GE Capital's assets. This deal represents about $8.4 billion of ending net investment and will contribute about $1.5 billion to the company's target of $35 billion of dividends that it expects to pay GE under the plan. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter. GE shares were up slightly in after-hours trade, and are up about 1.7% in the year so far, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen about 2.4%.