General Electric (GE) Returns To Its Roots With Access Bank Nigeria Partnership

When they sold GE Capital, I made it clear that GE was done: ” The new businesses are not bringing free cashflow to compensate what GE Capital was providing.” My thesis was that anyone in GE that thinks that companies buy expensive GE products because they are great has a malaria fever. Simply, most parts of the world came to GE because GE had a really good financing engine. But when GE took out the GE Capital, it then exposed its main customers to the open market financing which is never friendly to the type of things GE makes. You want me to go to a bank to get capital to finance a turbine? I am sure this country will prefer darkness because commercial banks will mess this DISCO (distribution company) up.

The summary here is that GE did not know that GE Capital was its double play for shipping those hardware solutions. Even if it was not making money via GE Capital, GE Capital was critical for most monies GE Power, GE Healthcare and other units were making. You can read the double play strategy here.

Now, it seems GE is coming back to that root: help customers buy things by making solutions more affordable. Yes, Access Bank and GE are partnering to help institutions acquire GE Healthcare solutions in Nigeria: “Access Bank and GE Healthcare  are to provide sustainable healthcare equipment financing to private healthcare providers”. GE must have negotiated better interest rates for these customers which none could have gotten directly with Access Bank.

Access Bank and GE Healthcare  are to provide sustainable healthcare equipment financing to private healthcare providers; The partnership will help the private healthcare providers to deliver access to affordable healthcare services.

GE Healthcare and Access Bank Nigeria have entered into a partnership to provide Nigeria’s Private Healthcare Providers with equipment financing. Under the partnership, borrowers will be able to secure loans of up to $800,000 negotiable, based on the customer requirement.

Access Bank will provide access to loans for eligible healthcare providers, while GE Healthcare will support the program through provision of GE healthcare equipment and technical support. The equipment under the partnership scope include Imaging Solutions including Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computed Tomography (CT), Ultrasound Machines and Life Care Solutions. Borrowers which qualify for loans include private healthcare providers such as hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres and other private practices offering a broad array of services.

GE needs to scale that to have a chance of coming back. Financing is its double play which it lost when it sold GE Capital.

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