GE Capital has become the first financial institution to shed its designation as systematically important to the US financial system, given to it by US regulators three years ago.
It was a regulatory status that was widely acknowledged as the trigger for the wide-scale sell-off of GE Capital’s various finance units, including its equipment finance and leasing business across the globe.
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The regulators agreed to remove the designation after GE Capital made "significant divestitures, transformed its funding model, and implemented a corporate reorganization."
A statement from GE Capital said it applied to regulators for removal of the designation in March 2016, after the company spent a year transforming itself into a smaller financial services provider by shedding over half of its assets.
Leasing-related highlights included the sale of its healthcare finance unit to Capital One for $9bn (8.14bn) in August, and the sale of its commercial lending and leasing businesses to Wells Fargo for $30bn in October 2015.
"This decision is a result of the transformation of GE Capital into a smaller, safer financial services company that meaningfully contributes to the success of GE’s industrial businesses," said GE Capital chairman and chief executive Keith Sherin. "We will continue to re-evaluate our capital requirements to reflect our reduced risk profile and right size our organization as we go forward."
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By GlobalDataGE Capital said it would return $18bn in dividends to its parent, GE, this year, and a total of $35bn in dividends during the entire transformation.
