Haier group of China has agreed to purchase General Electric Co’s appliance unit for $5.4 billion in cash. This is welcome news for GE, after US antitrust regulators prevented it from selling the unit to Electrolux of Sweden for $3.3bn.
GE is the second largest appliance unit provider in the US after Whirlpool Corp. however the company is looking to position itself as a technology company and so is offloading units not in line with its common goals.
The deal will be assessed by US antitrust regulators, as well as those of Mexico and Argentina, even as Haier will make regulatory filings in China. Once concluded, this would be Haier’s largest ever acquisition.