重磅 | 通用电气寻求出售数字资产

July 31, 2018 -- General Electric is seeking a buyer for key parts of its digital business as the beleaguered industrial conglomerate unwinds a signature initiative of former Chief Executive Jeff Immelt amid a broader retrenchment.

2018年7月31日——通用电气（GE）正在为其数字业务的关键部分寻找买家，因为这家陷入困境的工业集团在更大范围的裁员中放弃了前首席执行官杰夫·伊梅尔特（Jeff Immelt）的签名倡议。

The Boston-based company has hired an investment bank to run an auction for the operations, which GE has poured billions of dollars into, according to people familiar with the matter. It isn’t clear what exactly is for sale and how much a deal could generate.

据知情人士透露，这家总部位于波士顿的公司已经聘请了一家投资银行负责出售这些通用电气已经投入了数十亿美元的业务。目前尚不清楚通用电气具体要出售哪些资产，也不清楚这笔交易的规模。 

While the process is at an early stage, possible buyers include software companies and other industrial players seeking to become more digital-focused, one of the people said.

一位知情人士表示，虽然这一过程还处于早期阶段，但可能的买家包括软件公司和其他寻求更加聚焦数字化的行业参与者。

GE Digital, a much-touted software unit headquartered in San Ramon, Calif., was key to the strategy of Mr. Immelt, who left last summer. As part of an effort to reorient itself away from financial and media assets and bolster a sluggish stock price, the company built a software platform called Predix that aimed to help industrial customers like utilities and airlines gather and analyze data to better manage their equipment and wring out greater efficiencies.

作为备受瞩目的软件部门，GE Digital总部位于加州圣拉蒙，是于去年夏天离职的伊梅尔特的战略关键。作为将自身从金融和媒体资产上重新定位并支撑低迷股价努力的一部分，该公司开发了Predix软件平台，旨在帮助公用事业和航空公司等工业客户收集和分析数据，以更好地管理其设备，并提高效率。

GE Digital was established as a standalone unit in 2015 to distinguish it from the company's industrial divisions. In the fall of 2016, GE paid $915 million to acquire ServiceMax, a Pleasanton, Calif., company that makes apps for inventory management and workforce scheduling. Executives predicted at the time that GE would hit $15 billion in software sales by 2020 with half of that coming from providing Predix applications to the electricity industry.

GE Digital于2015年成立为独立部门，以区别于公司的工业部门。2016年秋，通用电气斥资9.15亿美元收购了位于加利福尼亚州普莱森顿的ServiceMax公司，该公司生产用于库存管理和劳动力调度的应用程序。高管们当时预测，到2020年通用电气的软件销售额将达到150亿美元，其中一半来自向电力行业提供Predix应用。

GE said the business had revenue of $4 billion last year, up 12% from 2016. Not all of that would go to a buyer as the company is expected to continue providing software and services to its aviation and power customers.

通用电气表示，该业务去年的收入为40亿美元，比2016年增长12％。由于该公司预计将继续为其航空和电力客户提供软件和服务，因此并非所有这些业务都将出售。

GE's digital push included ramping up research spending and hiring thousands of programmers to develop software for the massive machinery it sells. In 2016, the company spent more than $4 billion developing tools like analytics and machine-learning software. The effort was also at the heart of the company's advertising, which touted GE as a driver of a new "digital industrial" age.

通用电气的数字化举措包括增加研究支出和雇佣数千名程序员为其销售的一众机器开发软件。2016年，该公司花费超过40亿美元开发分析和机器学习软件等工具。这项努力也是该公司广告的核心，该广告宣称通用电气是“数字工业”新时代的驱动者。

But GE has since embarked on a companywide restructuring, sparked by a precipitous decline in its shares last year that hasn't let up in 2018, and now plans to focus on units that make jet engines and power turbines. GE said in June it would spin off its health-care division and sell its ownership stake in oil-services company Baker Hughes. The two businesses, coupled with a railroad unit that is being sold, accounted for a third of GE's $122 billion in revenue last year. GE has said its yearlong portfolio review is complete and it is essentially done with plans to sell $20 billion in assets.

但是通用电气公司自那以后开始了全公司范围的重组，这是由去年其股价急剧下滑引发的，而且2018年这一趋势并没减弱，现在它计划将重点放在制造飞机发动机和动力涡轮设备上面。通用电气曾在今年6月表示，将剥离其医疗部门，出售其在石油服务公司贝克休斯的股份。这两家公司，加上正在出售的铁路部门业务，占通用电气去年1220亿美元收入的三分之一。通用电气表示，其长达一年的业务组合审查已经完成，基本上已经完成了出售200亿美元资产的计划。

Under Mr.Immelt's replacement, John Flannery, the company has scaled backed the mission for GE Digital. The company has cut jobs in the division and said it planned to focus on software for its existing customers and core businesses, rather than creating services for other customers in other industries. Mr. Flannery recently said he wanted GE Digital to break even by 2020.

在伊梅尔特替任者约翰·弗兰纳里（John Flannery）的领导下，该公司已经为GE Digital的使命提供了支持。公司削减了该部门的工作岗位，并表示计划专注于现有客户和核心业务的软件，而不是为其他行业的其他客户创造服务。弗兰纳里最近表示，他希望GE Digital到2020年实现收支平衡。

Other industrial companies like Siemens AG, along with smaller firms, are using software to help customers get more life out of heavy machinery -- while avoiding unplanned outages -- by using complex data and models to predict how the equipment will perform.

其他工业公司，如西门子公司以及一些较小的公司，正在使用软件，通过利用复杂的数据和模型来预测设备的性能，帮助客户从重型机械中获得更长的生命周期——同时避免计划外停机。