General Electric (GE 1.30%) announced today it is poised to receive some $6.5 billion this year in dividends from its financial services arm, GE Capital Corp. It already paid $447 million in first-quarter earnings dividends to GE on April 19. Earnings-dividend payments are planned at 30% of GECC's total 2013 earnings and the yearly payment will include $4.5 billion in a special dividend.
GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt said: "This announcement is consistent with our goal to reduce the overall size of GE Capital and for it to return significant cash to GE."
GECC grew its earnings 9% during the first quarter while ending net investment (excluding cash and equivalents) declined 7% to $402 billion. GECC ended the quarter with $68 billion in cash, and its Tier 1 common ratio under Basel 1 improved by 65 basis points to 11.1%.
General Electric plans to return $18 billion to shareholders in 2013, including the repurchase of $10 billion of stock. Its regular dividend of $0.19 per share annualizes to a rate of $0.76 per share, yielding 3.2% based on the closing price of its stock on May 17.
