SCHENECTADY — The transformation of General Electric into three separate companies will be completed on Tuesday when GE Vernova spins off from GE and starts trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
GE announced in November 2021 that the company planned to split off into three independent companies — the energy-focused GE Vernova, GE HealthCare and GE Aerospace.
GE HealthCare spun off in January 2023 and began trading on the Nasdaq exchange, while GE Aerospace will launch as an independent company on Tuesday as well.
Victor Abate, CEO of GE Vernova’s Wind businesses, said the spin-off will prove beneficial to the company’s GE Vernova Schenectady campus and the GE Aerospace site in Niskayuna, which will serve as a research center for all three companies.
“I look at it as Thomas Edison started in our region and now there’s three purpose-built companies that have really been formed from his original company over the last 130 years that have really changed the world,” Abate said on Monday.
Joseph Vinciquerra, the senior director of research at GE Aerospace, said the company’s local facilities won’t experience any major changes overnight when the GE Vernova stock goes live on Tuesday morning.
“When GE announced the intent to split, it was really about giving our shareholders the specificity in what they were investing in and to allow each of the businesses to focus more intensely on their individual shareholders and markets,” he said.
Abate said the Niskayuna research facility is unique in that all three components of the trio of companies have operations at the local site.
“Think about that now as more of a university,” Abate said of the Niskayuna site. “It’s a platform with three colleges. If I’m an employee with Vernova, I have a badge that gets me into the Vernova-specific parts of those labs or if I’m a HealthCare employee, my badge gets me into the HealthCare college and those labs.”
GE Vernova will include the power, wind, and electrification segments of GE business, with the downtown Schenectady site to continue its current operations following Tuesday’s spin-off.
“That has always been more of an energy and power-focused site,” Abate said of the Schenectady plant. “So, that asset is in GE Vernova’s business. We make our generators there for power plants and do a lot of service work for nuclear and gas plants. Now, we also make wind turbines there. The country’s largest wind turbine is manufactured at that plant.”
Under the spin-off, Holders of GE common stock will be entitled to receive one share of GE Vernova common stock for every four shares of GE common stock held on March 19.
According to the company, following the completion of the spin-off, GE will operate as GE Aerospace and GE shareholders will continue to hold their shares under the company name GE Aerospace.
Vinciquerra, of GE Aerospace, said the spin-off should allow the company to bolster its product innovation.
“The thing that we’re all the most excited about — and I’m speaking of all three businesses — is that this move allows us to really focus on our industry segment,” he said. “So what you’re going to see, I think, coming out of GE Aerospace and GE Aerospace Research is a more intense focus on our industry and more specific product technology development.”
Representatives from GE Vernova and GE Aerospace will ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning to launch the GE Vernova stock. GE held a drone light show in New Jersey — visible from the Manhattan skyline — on Monday night to mark the occasion.
“I think it’s definitely a story of growth and excitement,” Vinciquerra said of the spin-off on Monday. “GE has had a significant presence in the region for so long now. I think that GE Vernova will be off to a phenomenal start and I think that will be a continuation of the GE story in the region, given the products that have been worked and promoted over the years. I think you’ll see a lot more from GE Aerospace and a lot more of our innovation stories coming out of the labs.”
