Now GE will spin off appliance unit before selling

[supersuds]

The latest cunning plan by the brain trust at General Electric is not to sell the appliance unit as originally planned -- interest has been "tepid" -- but to spin it off to shareholders along with the lighting business. In other words, existing GE shareholders will get some shares in the new company.

It may be a negotiating tactic to force the hand of potential suitors, identified as South Korea's LG Electronics Inc., China's Haier Electronics Group Co. and Mexico's Controladora Mabe, a unit of Controladora Comercial Mexicana. Either a sale or spinoff would likely include a license to continue to use the GE brand.

Wall Street analysts think the move is insignificant and GE has bigger problems that need to be corrected. The stock price is down 25% this year.

Source: Wall Street Journal, July 11.

 

[frigilux]

Very interesting. However, if one of the three listed companies winds up with it, I hope it's LG.

 

[laundromat]

I second that!

 

[seeitrun2006]

Parts for GE appliances

When this sell off/spin off happens will parts still be available for my GE clothes dryer?

I have what's referred to as a "GE long vent dryer" which we have had almost three years. You can run the vent up to 150 ft. if needed.

I know in the past we had a Zenith console TV we purchased in 1987. Sometime in the 90's it went out. Called a service Tech to come and repair it.

Two circuit boards and one month later the TV was finally repaired. The Tech told us because Zenith had moved their manufacturing to Mexico and they were having problems getting parts. Plus the quality had gone to hell in a hand bag. Total it cost us $350.00 to repair it. The Tech at the beginning it would cost about $150.00! Yeah right! But it played in our spare room until May 2008 and we donated it to the Salvation Army. The kids who came to pick it up had never seem a console TV before.

It this is whats going to happen with GE I'm getting rid of my GE dryer and upgrade to a Whirlpool Duet HT. This GE is a great dryer, noisy but does a good job!

 

[launderess]

This is not the best time to be putting together deals, Wall Street market wise. Maybe GE is trying to string things along until conditions improve with hopes of fetching a better price and or allowing an American company to compete. The last bit is that because of the falling dollar a bidder paying in any of several Asian dollars, or Euros could snap up GE's appliance unit at a very good price.

 

[chromacolor]

Hopefully parts for GE's will remain available for awhile.
Seeitrun2006, That Zenith you bought in 1987 was one of the last "true" Zenith's made. Zenith actually had parts sourced out to Mexico in the early 80's. By 87 they were almost bankrupt, and LG purchased a portion of the company in the late 80's, before taking complete control in the early 90's. They completely stopped supporting the parts division, and then made their own product under the Zenith name, which was horrid quality and destroyed the reputation of a once good company. Your service tech probably had to hunt for remaining stock parts to get your set up and running.
After seeing what LG did to Zenith and the "so-so" quality of their appliances now, I hope if they do end up with GE, it won't be the same fate as Zenith.

 

[peteski50]

GE

I Sincerely hope it's Not going to be LG. I know a lot of people will disagree but after I delt with their real piss poor service I Never want to deal with them again. I think it would be best if another foreign group like Haier Electronics gets it. I was disappointed in how whirlpool has handeled maytag. - But nothing could ever be worse as to what wci did to frigidaire!
Peter

 

[johnb300m]

How is it dissapointing how Whirlpool handled Maytag?

They could've done ALOT worse.
Instead they rebuilt up the brand, brought the repairman back in a big press stink.
Though their washers are just rebadged DDs, they're much better in quality than what Maytag was doing in the late days. They are very stylish machines too.
We still have the Maytag dishwashers going strong, I still see lots of their refrigerators and Gemini ranges at stores.

It's still pretty strong and still a good domestic player. Better than when they were independent I'd say.

I can't see any other company doing good things like that with GE unless it's Bosch/Siemens.

I've had a few Haier products in the past, they're garbage. NO fit and finish whatsoever.
The last Haier dishwasher I had in an apartment was some FUBAR mutant Whirlpool/GE dishwasher copy. They took 2 reputable designs and f'ed them up somehow.

I can't comment on LG, though I don't think of them favorably.

 

[peteski50]

How is it dissapointing how Whirlpool handled Maytag?

I would have liked to see whirlpool keep the samsung front load washer design and build on it. And go back to but not drop the dependable care top loader. I think it is kind of insulting to make the top loaders DD whirlpools and try to sell them off as real maytags!
Peter

 

[danemodsandy]

They're Snatching....

....Defeat from the jaws of victory if they do succeed in selling off the company.

The reason is shipping costs. Shipping white goods from China or Mexico has been so cheap that it has made some sense to have goods made in those countries, thereby taking advantage of their low labour costs.

That is changing, big-time. Certain companies are already moving operations back Stateside, because it's getting cheaper to pay Americans a decent wage than it is to ship low-cost goods from abroad.

If GE would hang tight a bit, the company will likely find itself on a level playing field with manufacturers in other countries, quite possibly even enjoying an advantage. If you make 'em here, you don't have to ship 'em far. That simple.

Oh, and if LG gets the company, I will never purchase a dime's worth of anything from them. Ever. After what they did to the window air-conditioner industry, I have no use for them. Poor design, no serviceability, disposable quality- and they overran the entire industry, making A/C units for nearly everybody, making laughingstocks out of formerly unimpeachable brand names like Fedders and Maytag. This planet can no longer afford that kind of thing; we have got to get back to appliances that fit the old description, "consumer durables."

 

[tolivac]

The return of manufacturing to America due to high shipping-fuel cost-this is where high fuel prices are a GOOD thing.If fuel prices ever drop-will the companies go back to building products abroad?

 

[paulg]

No love for LG

Sorry but I can never understand the love affair some people have with LG products. I have been in the servicing industry for about 25 years. I have had many hours of experience dealing with Goldstar and have absolutely no good stories to tell of (Lucky) Goldstar or LG. Parts and service problems still plague that company.
If GE goes to LG - that will be the end of my purchasing anything from that company. Over! Sorry.
I still think they changed their name to LG to get past the horrid experiences people had with many Goldstar products of the past.

 

[roto204]

Waiting for competition

I think it's safe to say that it will be Haier, LG, or some other non-Swedish, non-American competitor. Electrolux is already a juggernaut (heck, WCI was, and they snagged them...), though it's uncertain that there would be any antitrust action, given the zeitgeist and climate. Lord knows that E-lux could pull an Anheuser-Busch given the weakness of the dollar, though.

Waiting for an American company to acquire them? Oh? Who, Whirlpool? Aside from antitrust issues, I wonder if Whirlpool would be interested in another major acquisition after trying to reposition their product lines after Maytag. So, then, who else is there? Maybe Alliance Laundry Systems?

I'm thinking it's going to be Haier or LG. I don't have any love for LG, and Haier is all over the place in terms of product quality--sometimes you see great stuff that feels substantial; sometimes you see stuff that looks like Tupperware and duct-tape played a roll (no pun intended) in its assembly. I do have to give Haier credit for taking poorly executed but innovative designs and improving/reimplementing them, though--the Genesis being an interesting example.

But not John's dishwasher--that was poo

 

[thomasortega]

An yellow bird came to my window and started to sang:

Electrolux has a way to bypass the antitrust laws, Electrolux owns much more in the USA that most people know, Electrolux owns part of other big american companies! Electrolux is jeopardizing the quality of the "other company" products to make it bankupt and buy it much cheaper using other name.

After that, the bird flew away...