General Electric Co. said Thursday that its GE Capital finance unit will not need more outside funding and at worst will break even under scenarios the Federal Reserve Board is using to test banks during a global recession and credit crunch.
GE made the forecast at a meeting in New York where Chief Financial Officer Keith Sherin and other executives tried to allay investor concerns by providing the most detail yet about the unit's funding, holdings, reserves and potential writedowns and losses.
"We're running GE Capital to be safe and secure in this environment," Sherin told the audience. GE is "committed" to having a finance business, he said. "We have enough capital to be able to weather a very adverse set of cases."
The finance arm has been stress-tested using methods the Fed employs for banks, as well as a scenario in which U.S. unemployment peaks at 10% and gross domestic product falls more than 3% this year, GE said.
The unit's target for net income this year remains $5 billion.
"Even in the worst case, we're break-even to slightly profitable and we have no need for outside capital," GE Capital's chief executive, Michael Neal, told investors.
