BOSTON—GE recently announced plans to split apart into three separate companies in coming years, including a stand-alone GE Healthcare.
The company said it will pursue a tax-free spinoff of GE Healthcare in early 2023, but will retain a 19.9 percent stake in that spinoff.

In early 2024, it plans to spin off the combined renewable energy and power companies, currently two separate divisions. They both have large presences in Schenectady. GE Aviation will be the third company.

GE Healthcare brought in $17 billion in sales in 2020 and remains one of the 10 largest medtech businesses in the world, even after GE divested its Biopharma business to Danaher in early 2020.

“By creating three industry-leading, global public companies, each can benefit from greater focus, tailored capital allocation, and strategic flexibility to drive long-term growth and value for customers, investors, and employees,” writes GE CEO H. Lawrence Culp Jr. in a news release. Culp will become the healthcare company’s non-executive chair upon its spinoff; he’ll lead the GE aviation-focused company once the two spinoffs are complete.

By retaining a 19.9 percent stake in the healthcare company, GE hopes to enable capital allocation flexibility. It also expects that healthcare will issue debt securities, the proceeds of which will be used to pay down outstanding GE debt.