The spin-off of the medical technology business has paid off for the shareholders of the US conglomerate General Electric (GE).

Shares in GE HealthCare rose by 4.6 percent to 58.57 dollars on Wednesday on the Nasdaq technology exchange compared to the calculated issue price. But GE shares also rose, by 1.6 percent. Last year they had lost eleven percent. The conglomerate is now worth a good 72 billion dollars on the stock exchange. GE retains 19.9 percent of the shares in GE HealthCare, a manufacturer of X-ray and ultrasound equipment, diagnostic and patient monitoring systems with 51,000 employees.

At the beginning of 2024, GE also plans to spin off its energy technology - from coal-fired power plants to wind turbines - and float it independently on the stock market as GE Vernova. GE will then focus on the manufacture of aircraft engines and airplanes as GE Aerospace. CEO Larry Culp, who is also to lead the Board of Directors of GE HealthCatre, intends to use the spin-off announced in November 2021 to reduce the debt burden and help the share price recover.

Medical technology has been GE's flagship business in recent years due to strong demand for its devices and rising prices. In view of an ageing society, the market segments in which GE Healthcare is active are expected to grow to around 102 (2021: 84) billion dollars over the next three years. GE HealthCare expects annual growth of around five percent in the medium term. Last year, sales amounted to 18 billion dollars. The company will be included in the S&P 500 index of the 500 most important US companies from Wednesday.

The split-up of GE is similar to the steps taken by Munich-based arch-rival Siemens in recent years. Siemens had also floated its medical technology division as Siemens Healthineers, but retained more than 75 percent of it. The energy technology division was spun off as Siemens Energy, in which the company now holds only 35 percent and intends to further reduce its stake.

(Report by Lance Tupper, Kannaki Deka, Leroy Leo and Alexander Hübner, edited by Hans Seidenstücker. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).