General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) has now confirmed reports that the company will make a bid for Alstom SA (EPA:ALO). General Electric faces a potential bidding war for the French company, with Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) (FRA:SIE) preparing its own bid, according to sources. General Electric Chief Jeff Immelt sent the following email to employees today, a copy of which can be found below.
Immelt, Jeff (GE, Corporate)
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Colleagues,
Today we announced an offer to buy the Power and Grid businesses of Alstom for $13.5 billion. It is a good deal for investors and will help us win with customers. It geographically and technologically complements our largest industrial business, is accretive to investors upon closing and is fairly priced.
Alstom is an iconic, global company. It has more than $10 billion of revenue in growth markets. It has significant talent and deep engineering. This transaction will help Power & Water grow over the long term: we’ll have more competitive “total plant” solutions, and it expands our installed base 35 percent. It also brings scale, integrated technology solutions and large-project capabilities to our Energy Management business.
This transaction is fully aligned with our strategy to grow our industrial businesses so that they account for approximately 75% of our operating earnings. Alongside this transaction, we need to continue to drive organic growth across our industrial portfolio through global breadth, technology leadership, customer excellence and a simplified and leaner GE.
John Flannery, Steve Bolze and the deal team have done a great job getting us to this point. They have much more to do with regulators, customers and others to close the deal. Please give them your full assistance.
For more information, check out the infographic.
Thanks.
