GE Increases Debt Buyback to $7 Billion in Deleveraging Push

(Bloomberg) -- General Electric Co. is increasing the size of a previously announced tender offer as the company continues to clean up its debt-laden balance sheet.

GE is now looking to buy back $7 billion of bonds, up from as much as $4.865 billion when the transaction was announced last month, according to a statement Tuesday. The increase targets three sets of GE Capital notes and four at the parent level.

The move advances Chief Executive Officer Larry Culp’s push to slash GE’s bloated debt load, one of his top priorities since taking the helm of the industrial giant in 2018. When completed, GE will have eliminated some $50 billion in gross debt since then. Interest and other financial charges cost the company $3.27 billion last year.

GE said in March it’s planning to buy back $25 billion of bonds after completing the sale of its jet-leasing business to AerCap Holdings NV, part of a debt reduction plan that will wind down the remnants of its finance arm. That will take GE’s gross debt down to $70 billion, and to less than $45 billion by 2023.

The tender offer expires on June 21.

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