Based in the UK, SMBCE provides commercial banking services. It offers deposit taking, lending, securities retail sales and trading, securities investment, and fund transfers.
GE has also completed the sale of $3.7bn portfolio of loans from its UK home lending business to Kensington Mortgage, which is controlled by Blackstone Tactical Opportunities and TPG Special Situation Partners.
The sale forms a part of the company’s strategy to reduce the size of its financial businesses to create a simpler and more valuable company. However, GE will retain the financing businesses that relate directly to its industrial businesses.
GE will also focus on the growth of its industrial businesses.
Commenting on the sale, GE Capital chairman and CEO Keith Sherin said: "We are pleased to complete the sale of the European Sponsor Finance business to SMBCE.
"In addition, with the closing of our third loan portfolio sale this year, we have reduced the size of our UK home lending business by nearly 50 percent to less than US$7bn.
"These closings represent important milestones as we continue to execute on our plan to sell most of the assets of GE Capital."
Earlier this month, BMO Financial Group agreed to acquire GE Capital’s transportation finance business in the US and Canada, in a bid to expand its commercial banking business.
Image: GE Capital Bank. Photo: courtesy of joho345 / Wikimedia Commons.
