GE to Sell Asset Management Division | Chief Investment Officer

General Electric (GE) is looking to sell its $115 billion asset management arm.

GE announced Thursday that it will explore opportunities to sell GE Asset Management (GEAM) to another leading investment management firm.

It is seeking buyers experienced in managing retirement plan assets, with the scale and broad distribution capabilities to support the continued growth of GEAM’s third-party client base.

“GE Asset Management has world-class investment capabilities and an experienced, talented team that has done a terrific job managing assets for benefit plans serving GE employees and retirees, as well as other investors,” said GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt in a release.

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Immelt said there has already been “significant interest” from investment firms in acquiring GEAM.

“As we continue to transform GE to focus on our industrial core, now is the right time to explore such a sale,” he said.

GE announced in April that it would move away from financial services to refocus on its manufacturing and industrial core. This plan has already begun to come to fruition with the sale of GE Capital’s private-equity lender Antares Capital in June.

Proceeds from the sale of GEAM will go to the pension trust, increasing trust assets used to pay GE pension plan benefits. GE will remain plan sponsor and fiduciary for benefit plans managed by the asset management arm following the sale.

Related: Pension Giant Buys GE Unit

sluimers 2 Dick Sluimers APG Group’s chief executive Dick Sluimers will leave the pension manager after 25 years.

The €417 billion ($470 billion) asset manager for Dutch pension fund ABP announced Thursday that Sluimers would step down as chairman of the group’s executive board on January 1, 2016.

APG cited Sluimers’s decision to resign as a result of the near completion of the group’s three-year restructuring program. The reorganization, which included the loss of about 200 jobs, was described in 2012 as an “integration of business units… with the aim of preserving the future health of the business.”

According to APG, Sluimers considered next year “a natural point in time” to step down and focus on “other public administration and consulting work.”

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“Dick’s contribution is of inestimable value to APG, as well as the client pension funds and the pension sector in the Netherlands as a whole,” said Bart Le Blanc, chairman of APG’s supervisory board, in a release. “While his leadership will be sorely missed in a period in which the pension system is undergoing fundamental changes, we understand his motivation. It is now up to APG to find a good successor.”

Sluimers first joined the asset manager as a member of the ABP board of trustees. He later served as CFO and chairman of the ABP board of directors. He was named chairman of the APG Group executive board in 2008.

During his time at APG, Sluimers was outspoken about the Netherlands’ stringent regulations for domestic asset managers, arguing that the rules were detrimental to Dutch pension providers.

Sluimers previously worked in the Hague, holding policy positions in various departments including the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment.

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