GE still owned 30% of Baker Hughes outstanding stock, after sale of 38 million shares
General Electric Co. disclosed Monday that it raised about $735 million by trimming its large Baker Hughes Co. stake, a day after the oilfield products and services company reported disappointing fourth-quarter results.
In a Form 4 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, GE GE, -0.77% said it sold 38,007,041 shares of Baker Hughes BKR, -3.83% on Jan. 22, at $19.34. That price was 12.8% below Friday’s closing price of Baker Hughes stock of $22.17.
In the filing, GE said it sold the Class A shares to an “unaffiliated financial institution” at a price based on the volume-weighted average price, over the financial institution’s hedging period.
Baker Hughes stock had dropped 1.5% on Jan. 21, after the company reported a surprise fourth-quarter adjusted per-share loss, then fell another 1.7% on Friday.
After the stock sale, which was valued at $735.06 million, GE still owned 311,432,660 Baker Hughes shares, or 30.1% of the shares outstanding.
Based on Friday’s stock closing price for Baker Hughes stock, GE’s remaining stake is valued at about $6.90 billion.
Shares of GE, which is scheduled to report fourth-quarter results before Tuesday’s open, gained 0.2% in premarket trading Monday, while Baker Hughes stock shed 1.7%.
Over the past three months, GE shares have run up 45.6% and Baker Hughes stock has shot up 55.1% through Friday, while the S&P 500 index SPX, 0.26% has gained 10.9%.