Blackstone, Wells Fargo Buy $23 Billion In Property From GE

April 10, 2015

According to Bloomberg, Blackstone Group LP and Wells Fargo & Co. agreed to buy most of General Electric Co.’s real estate assets in a deal valued at about $23 billion, in an effort to further shrink GE’s financial unit. Bloomberg’s Devin Banerjee reports that GE Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt “does not want GE to be a bank.”

Blackstone will acquire GE’s U.S. holdings, mainly office buildings in Southern California, Seattle and Chicago, for $3.3 billion, along with a $4.6 billion portfolio of commercial mortgages. Wells Fargo will buy performing mortgages on commercial real estate valued at $9 billion in the U.S., U.K. and Canada. GE said it’s in talks with buyers for other commercial property deals that will raise the value of assets it’s selling to $26.5 billion.