General Electric exits TV business to focus on core business

It’s another step in GE’s efforts to focus on less glamorous, but theoretically more profitable, ventures such as manufacturing medical imaging equipment, airplane engines and electrical generators.

The Fairfield, Connecticut, company announced Tuesday that it is selling its 49 per cent stake in NBCUniversal to Comcast Corp., the largest US cable TV operator, for $16.7 billion. Comcast had bought a majority stake in the television and movie company in January 2011 and was expected to buy out GE’s remaining stake over the next several years.

GE will use the money to accelerate its share repurchase program to approximately $10 billion in 2013.

“This transaction allows us to significantly increase the cash we plan to return to shareholders in 2013, to approximately $18 billion, and to continue to invest in our industrial business,’’ GE CEO Jeff Immelt said in a statement.

GE is giving up its stake in one of America’s best-known brands. The sale includes the NBC broadcast network. The company also owns cable networks Bravo, CNBC, Telemundo, USA, the Golf Channel and Universal Pictures.

GE’s capital unit will also sell the floors NBCUniversal occupies in the iconic 30 Rockefeller Center building in New York as well as property in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, for $1.4 billion. GE will retain two floors at 30 Rock, spokesman Seth Martin said.

The sale of the Rockefeller Center floors includes naming rights to the building,

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