GE Capital, Navistar Partner On Truck Loans

General Electric Co.'s (GE) financing unit will provide customer loans for commercial truck maker Navistar International Corp. (NAV), giving Navistar the ability to finance larger truck fleet purchases.

The partnership between the two companies, which will be called Navistar Capital, will effectively transfer Navistar's retail-level lending operations from its finance subsidiary to General Electric Capital Corp. The new venture will commence in about 90 days, the companies said Tuesday.

About 60 Navistar Financial employees who support its retail lending business will join GE Capital to manage lending under the new venture, the companies said. Navistar Financial, meanwhile, will continue to provide financing for truck purchases by the company's independent dealers.

The two companies declined to divulge how much money GE Capital is committing to Navistar Capital or the details about profit-sharing between the companies. The agreement announced Tuesday will run for three years, followed by one-year automatic renewals that will run indefinitely.

Navistar Financial has been providing customer loans totaling $1 billion to $2 billion a year. The company's traditional focus has been on small and medium-sized trucking companies that have limited credit options elsewhere.

But Navistar has been under pressure in the past year to expand its lending volume as large trucking companies look to the company for purchase financing as they replace their truck fleets. Tighter credit standards have put bank loans off limits for many of these companies, prolonging a sales slump in the commercial truck industry that began in 2007.

Navistar said the ability to provide in-house financing for large truck deals will make the Illinois company more competitive with rivals such as Daimler AG's (DAI, DAI.XE) Freightliner truck line and Paccar Inc. (PCAR).

GE Capital has provided financing for Navistar's customers in Canada for the past 25 years. The Connecticut company also has similar partnerships with other equipment makers, including for the Bobcat-brand of compact construction equipment. GE Credit operates about 40 commercial lending programs across a variety of industries.

Navistar noted that the infusion of capital from GE will allow Navistar to expand its financing options, particularly a lease-to-own program for trucks buyers. Navistar Capital also is expected to strengthen Navistar's balance sheet by lessening Navistar Financial's reliance on borrowing to generate capital for loans.

"The deal is a mild positive for Navistar," said Gregg Lemos Stein, a credit analyst with Standard & Poor's, in a written statement. "We believe the alliance will reduce the risk of heavy funding requirements at Navistar Financial Corp."

Navistar, which has a below-investment-grade credit rating, has been an active issuer in the public market for asset-backed securities. Navistar Financial in January was in the market with a $250 million equipment bond for dealer financing. The security is eligible for financing under the Federal Reserve's Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, which is intended to rejuvenate the consumer loan-backed market.

Bill McMenamin, vice president of Navistar Financial, predicted the company will lessen its exposure to the asset-backed market once Navistar Capital takes over customer lending.

"Navistar Financial will become a smaller, but more conservatively financed company," he said.

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GE and Hitachi want to use nuclear waste as a fuel

One of the world's biggest providers of nuclear reactors, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (a joint venture of General Electric and Hitachi), wants to reprocess nuclear waste for use as a fuel in advanced nuclear power plants, instead of burying it in waste repositories such as that proposed at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.

Conventional nuclear power plants in the US only harness around five percent of the energy of nuclear fuels. The reprocessing technique would separate nuclear waste into different types of fuels, some of which can be used in conventional nuclear power plants, and some of which can only be used in advanced fast neutron reactors. Reprocessing of nuclear waste to extract more useable fuel has been criticized in the US because it produces pure plutonium, which could be stolen and used to make nuclear weapons. To get around this difficulty, GE Hitachi’s proposed method produces a fuel that is much harder to steal.

The GE Hitachi process separates wastes from conventional nuclear power plants into three streams, by applying voltage to a molten salt. The first waste material consists of the products of fission, which cannot be further used as fuel and will need to be stored, but the storage time required is reduced from tens of thousands of years to a few hundred years (although a small fraction of the material will still need to be stored for over 10,000 years). The second material is uranium that does not have enough fissile material to be used in the light water uranium reactors in the US, which need enriched uranium, but it can be used by deuterium (heavy water) uranium reactors, which are used in Canada.

The final group of waste products is a mixture of transuranic elements including plutonium and neptunium. The plutonium is not separated from the other elements, and the mixture releases 1,000 times more heat and 10,000 times more neutrons than pure plutonium. This makes it much harder to steal, and therefore less of a security risk, and it is also much easier to detect. The mixture of transuranic elements can be used in nuclear reactors that use molten sodium as the coolant rather than water, and this type is used in Japan and a few other countries. GE Hitachi has designed a reactor known as the PRISM reactor that would be able to use the mixed fuel, but sodium cooled reactors have not been approved for use in the US.

A GE Hitachi spokesman said previous US administrations had little interest in re-using spent nuclear fuel, but the Obama administration is increasing support for nuclear power and looking at possibilities such as reprocessing. If adopted, the proposal would significantly decrease the amount of dangerous nuclear waste that needs to be stored.

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GE Energy, Partner Seek Smarter Way To Charge Electric Cars

GE Energy has entered into a partnership with electric vehicle plug developer Juice Technologies LLC to integrate smart-metering technology into charging devices. GE Energy, a unit of General Electric Co. (GE), has been developing products and services to help the integration of advanced energy technologies into the transmission system in a way that allows better use of power resources. The partnership with Juice is its first move into electric car charging technology.

With advanced metering technology incorporated into charging devices developed by Juice, GE hopes vehicle owners will be able to manage the charging, the same way smart meters are being deployed to help people monitor electricity use. Clemente also said utilities may eventually develop a rate system whereby electric vehicle owners would have an incentive to charge up their cars during off-peak hours, and the smart charging stations would help them control that.

GE said it will start offering the chargers with Juice's technology in the second half of this year.

GE is in talks with original equipment manufacturers in the auto industry to discuss the adoption of its meters, which it believes will be used both at homes as well as in public charging infrastructure.

Some electric vehicle developers are offering charging kits to be installed in their customers' homes. For instance, ClipperCreek Inc. delivered chargers for Tesla Motors Inc.'s Roadster and BMW AG's (BMW.XE) Mini E, and Nissan USA has a deal with AeroVironment Inc. (AVAV) to use its chargers for the fully electric Nissan Leaf.

Juice Technologies, which worked with utilities and the Ohio State University's Center for Automotive Research to develop its technology, has also developed a kit for homeowners to manage their energy consumption that is marketed under the brand PlugSmart.

Juice is backed by private individual investors as well as "a significant equity investment" by a large consumer electronics company, with which Juice is working to market its home energy management technology, said Aaron Martlage

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General Electric Stock News (NYSE:GE) - Poised For A Comeback

General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE) is one American business that's been around the block more than a few times. The company has seen its share of ups and downs and so have the investors who have tenaciously held their shares.

Right now, GE appears to be stabilizing from an operational standpoint, and the stock price seems to be firming up as well.

There's no question GE and its stock were hit by the global financial crisis. The company's huge GE Capital division faced all of the same problems faced by many of America's largest financial outfits. This put a drag on earnings for the conglomerate, as well as the share prices.

Now the company seems to have engineered its turnaround and has even announced a small profit for the fourth quarter. The company earned 36 cents a share on sales of $46 billion.

The big question remains how will GE Capital's toxic asset portfolio affect future earnings. As long as the threat is there, it could continue to constrain GE stock growth. We will learn much more about this in the coming months as 2010 data is crunched. If the worst is over for GE Capital, GE stock could be set for a decent run.

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FD Seeks Partnership with General Electric:Power Sector

The Minister of Power, Dr. Lanre Babalola yesterday disclosed that the Federal Government would welcome greater participation by the United States-based energy supply conglomerate, the General Electric in the efforts to find lasting solution to Nigeria’s power supply crisis.

Babalola in a statement signed by his Special Assistant on Media, Mr. Yakubu Lawal expressed the commitment of government to partner with private investors, with a view to providing definite and sustainable solutions to the nation’s power needs.

The Minister who made the statement when a delegation from General Electric (GE), America, led by the President, GE for African Region, Lazarus Agbazo paid him a courtesy call in Abuja, called on the company to improve on its business model by increasing its presence in the country, to ensure quicker response from all quarters in possible problem situations.

The meeting with GE was held under the auspices of a country to company agreement signed in 2009, with the aim of exploring, identifying, reviewing and promoting specific sector projects for the development of Nigeria’s critical infrastructure as well as location of service and technical support for such structures.

Babalola noted that given the importance of power to the socio-economic development of the country, efforts were being put in place for diversification to reduce the overdependence on gas for power generation.

He said the first Wind-Farm power Project in Nigeria contracted last year would soon be commissioned soon. He further said that there was a visible problem in the power sector that could only be resolved through the provision of articulated solution, welcoming the inclusion of a visit to Olorunsogo power station in the delegation’s itinerary pointing out that firsthand assessment will go a long way in optimizing both interests.

Earlier, the President, GE for African Region, Lazarus Agbazo who led other senior Management team of GE said the visit is targeted at strengthening business relationship with Nigeria.

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