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GE announces divestiture plan for Baker Hughes

  In what’s turned out to be a brief and unprofitable foray into the global oil business, General Electric Co. has announced that it will divest itself of the 62.5 percent ownership it has in the oilfield-services company Baker Hughes.

Bloomberg News reported Tuesday that GE plans to “unload” it’s stake in Baker Hughes over the next two to three years through sale of stock.

An outright sale to a competitor such as Schlumberger or Halliburton seems unlikely because of antitrust concerns. In 2016 Haliburton’s plan to buy Baker Hughes was nixed.

Since the beginning of the year, Baker Hughes stock has fallen 11 percent. However good news on Wall Street followed the planned separation as Baker Hughes rose 2.1 percent to $33.13 per share in New York, while GE soared almost 9 percent for its biggest advance in more than three years.

Bloomberg reported that the value of GE’s stake in Baker Hughes was at about $23 billion.

There’s no word yet on how the decision may affect Baker Hughes on the Kenai Peninsula and Alaska, where it has a significant presence.