Companies Announce Genworth Moves

By Staff Writer

September 14, 2005 at 08:00 PM

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Genworth Financial Inc. and its parent, General Electric Company, plan to get cash from investors.[@@]

Genworth, Richmond, Va., says it wants to borrow $350 million from investors by issuing 10-year senior notes that will pay an annual interest rate of 4.95%.

Genworth hopes to use the proceeds from the offering to reduce the amount of money it borrows by issuing commercial paper.

Meanwhile, General Electric, Fairfield, Conn., is selling a large allotment of its Genworth shares to other investors.

General Electric once owned all of Genworth, then took Genworth public by selling a minority interest to the public in May 2004. In May 2005, General Electric said it wanted to further reduce its stake in Genworth.

Now Genworth says General Electric will be selling 81 million shares with a total value of about $2.7 billion.

General Electric intends to sell 60 million shares to members of the public and 21 million shares to a unit of Citigroup Inc., Genworth says.

Completing those transactions and smaller transactions to be used to pay the investment bankers for their help would cut General Electric's stake in Genworth to 32% of Genworth's common stock, Genworth says.

Genworth will not receive the proceeds of any of the offerings, Genworth says.

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