Expanding on GEC Plc’s arrangements with General Electric Co (CI No 1,156), the evident difficulty that most would-be partner companies have in reaching definitive agreement with GEC mean that the ventures are less comprehensive than those envisaged in the original announcement at the end of last year – in particular, the 25%-75% joint venture on medical electronics in Europe is abandoned, and GE simply buys GEC’s UK sales and service network for X-ray, nuclear magnetic resonance and other medical products, which has annual sales of about UKP20m; GE’s European appliance business is not now going into the 50-50 electrical appliances joint venture, for which GE pays GEC UKP325m; and GE is taking only a 10% stake in the GEC-CGE-Alsthom joint venture and will not now put its turbine technology into the firm; the GEC electrical plugs and switches business in Belgium and GE’s similar business in Italy will be merged as was originally planned.
