General Electric seeks buyer for its digital assets

GENERAL Electric’s big bet on GE Digital has fallen short and it is now seeking a buyer for key parts of its business.

The 126-year-old conglomerate has hired an investment bank to run an auction for its digital operations, according to The Wall Street Journal. It is not known exactly what GE has put up for sale or for how much.

GE’S digital drive was the “signature initiative” of former chief executive Jeff Immelt, who left the firm last summer. He created the GE Digital unit in 2015 in an attempt to become a “top-10 software company” by 2020.

That same year, he launched the GE Predix Cloud, described at the time as the “first and only cloud solution for industrial data and analytics”. The Boston-based firm hoped it would hit $15bn (£11bn) in software sales by 2020.

However, Mr Immelt’s attempts to make an impact in the sector floundered and GE has since embarked on a company-wide restructuring plan.

The business has also been struggling to compete with the knowledge of specialist cloud service providers.