GE GE Aerospace

   By Colin Kellaher 
 

General Electric Co.'s (GE) divestiture program could leave the struggling conglomerate with $22 billion to deal with debt and other liabilities, Moody's Investors Service said Friday.

The ratings agency said GE's proceeds from asset monetizations from 2018 to 2020, combined with free cash flows, could total $50 billion, leaving up to $22 billion of surplus funds after taking into account already planned cash uses.

Moody's said GE can use that money to pare its debt load more quickly than planned and to help manage its contingent liabilities, including the possible need to further increase GE Capital's statutory insurance reserves for long-term care policies."

The agency cautioned, however, that the planned divestitures, which include GE Transportation and GE Healthcare, will put a large dent in GE's cash flows.

Moody's in October cut GE's credit rating by two notches to Baa1, just three notches above "junk" territory, and the agency has warned that it could downgrade GE if its leverage ratio doesn't steadily drop toward less than three times.

Write to Colin Kellaher at colin.kellaher@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 22, 2019 11:16 ET (16:16 GMT)

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