GE disappears from Dow average

NEW YORK — General Electric Co. is shrinking again, becoming a mere shadow of the globe-spanning conglomerate that it was before the Great Recession.

GE said Tuesday that it will spin off its health-care business and sell its interest in Baker Hughes, which provides drilling services to oil and gas companies.

The moves were announced as GE disappeared from the Dow Jones industrial average for the first time since 1907. They underscored how radically the company has changed in less than a decade.

GE traces its roots to Thomas Edison and the invention of the light bulb. The company grew with the American economy. At the start of the global financial crisis in 2008, it was one of the nation’s biggest lenders, its appliances were sold by the millions to homeowners around the world, and it oversaw a multinational media powerhouse including NBC television.

Since then, the company has been selling assets, with the latest divestitures coming after a yearlong review by CEO John Flannery.

“Today marks an important milestone in GE’s history,” Flannery said. He vowed to give the company more of a high-tech and industrial focus, and to make GE simpler and stronger by focusing on aviation, power and renewable energy — businesses that he said are poised to grow.

“We have changed many things, but the essence of GE endures,” he said on a conference call with analysts.