GE To Sell Stake In Bank BPH's Core Bank In $2.1 Billion Deal

General Electric Co. said Friday it is selling a majority stake in Poland's Bank BPH's Core Bank to Alior Bank in a multilayered deal with an ending net investment of about $2.1 billion. Bank BPH will be transformed into two units, the Core Bank and the Mortgage Bank, followed by a spinoff and demerger of Core Bank into Alior. GE is expected to pocket $200 million in capital, and will retain $3.9 billion of mortgages in the Mortgage Bank unit and BPH TFI, the bank's asset management business. The move is the latest by GE as it sheds its financial units to focus on its core industrial businesses. In total, the company is planning to sell about $200 billion of GE Capital businesses worldwide, the bulk of which are expected to completed by the end of 2016. GE shares were slightly lower in premarket trade, but are up 2% in the year so far, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up about 1.5%.