The General Electric Co has managed to off-load all the subsidiaries it wanted to sell, having announced completion of the sale of GEC Plessey Semiconductors to Kanata, Canada’s Mitel Corp. Mitel has paid $225m in cash for the former GEC division, bringing GEC’s total income from the sale of its divisions around the world to around $300m. Sales started in September 1996, in which time GEC has got rid of 11 business divisions. According to GEC, Mitel views semiconductors as key to its future survival and strategy, something it is pleased about. But now GEC is free to start shaping up its business and concentrating on its new strategy to concentrate on its defense business (CI No 3,305). GEC said in January that it planned to complete sales by the end of March (CI No 3,323), an objective it has managed to achieve with time in hand. GEC claims the subsidiaries it has sold generated combined revenue of $1bn for the year ending March 1997 and operating profits of $25m. Mitel, which employs 4,000 staff across the world and generated interim profits up 52.6% to $29.6m, on revenue that rose 19.3% to $275.7m (CI No 3,280), spent $3.8m, on the assets of US communication systems provider Global Village Communication Inc’s UK based Integrated Services Digital Network business, at the same time last year.
