By Ted Mann 

General Electric said it would be willing to sell off intellectual property to secure regulatory approval for its $17 billion deal for Alstom SA's power business, but said concessions around the French company's service business aren't an option.

The comments by Chief Executive Jeff Immelt were the most specific yet about what GE would and wouldn't concede as a European regulators continue to review the deal announced more than a year ago.

The standoff pits European concerns about concentration in the power market against Mr. Immelt's efforts to reorient GE around its industrial roots and financially struggling Alstom's need to secure a buyer for the assets.

GE has chafed at the protracted review period, which recently was extended to Aug. 21. Mr. Immelt and the chief of GE's power business, Steve Bolze, have said that the uncertainty of the regulatory review is hurting Alstom's prospects, noting that sales and earnings for the French business have dropped in recent months.

"The processes in Europe put this company in play for 15 months and that's tough on a business," Mr. Immelt told investors at the Electrical Products Group Conference in Longboat Key, Florida. Even so, he expressed confidence approval would come.

Mr. Immelt's presentation was heavy on details about the Alstom deal, a central piece of his strategy to return GE to its industrial roots. In it, he announced that GE has more than doubled the amount of money it believes it can wring out of the combined business over five years to $3 billion. The bulk of that additional value will come from measures like shrinking the footprint of factories and cutting overhead like sales costs.

Potential revenue from servicing Alstom's installed base of power turbines is a coveted part of the deal for GE. In taking over Alstom's service business, GE said it would also acquire a unit that has the capability to service not only its own machines but also those made by Siemens and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., offering the potential to reap profits for years from power plants across Europe, Asia and Africa.

Meanwhile, Mr. Immelt said the company has been inundated with interest in the financial businesses it put up for sale last month. GE has received more than 450 inbound inquiries for those businesses, and Mr. Immelt said the company will be able to sell off all of what is on the block by next year, faster than its previous forecast of 2017.

By the end of June, GE will sign deals to sell between $20 billion to $30 billion in finance assets beyond what the company has already announced, Mr. Immelt said.

In the years after the financial crisis, GE has been pulling out of the finance business and plowing money into its new oil and gas operation that has been recently been hit by the downturn in crude prices. Mr. Immelt said GE now expects its profits in the business to fall by 5% to 10% in 2015, though he said half of that effect can be blamed on foreign exchange rates, not the slumping price of oil.

Write to Ted Mann at ted.mann@wsj.com

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