GE to return $18 bn to shareholders after early NBC deal

General Electric Co expects to return about $18 billion to investors this year in share buybacks and dividends, as it sells its remaining stake in NBC Universal. The sale of the network GE bought in 1986 was the latest step in CEO Jeff Immelt’s campaign to refocus the largest US conglomerate back on its industrial roots.

The sale, which came more than a year earlier than expected, should allow the company to achieve its long-held goal of buying back the shares it issued in the depths of the financial crisis.

The news sent shares of the world's biggest maker of electric turbines and jet engines up 3.6 per cent, to their highest point since October 2008, when the financial crisis was threatening to undermine the company. The $18 billion figure includes both the $10 billion of shares the company plans to buy back this year and GE's dividend, which the company last hiked in December by 12 per cent to a 19 cent per share quarterly rate.