Wabtec Confirms Planned Exit by General Electric

Wabtec Corp. (NYSE: WAB) and General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE | GE Price Prediction) look less and less like they are moving in the same direction. Along with Wabtec’s earnings, the company known as Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies disclosed that GE sold more than half of its stake in the locomotive and train equipment maker.

Wabtec gave projected cash flow from operations to be about $900 million this year, including expenses of about $100 million related to the GE Transportation merger. Wabtec had issued 47.8 million shares to GE in that merger, and Wabtec said that GE sold 25.3 million shares into the market in the second quarter.

More importantly, Wabtec noted that GE has informed it that it is considering seeking to liquidate the balance of its stock holdings in the current quarter. While the sale would be subject to market conditions, and while there were no assurances offered that the Wabtec share divesting will happen, the move is one in which Wabtec believes it would be beneficial and GE needs to keep raising cash.

Wabtec shares have been volatile in the second quarter of 2019. The stock peaked at close to $78 and its trough was close to $63, before recovering back to its latest closing price of $71.10.

Shares of Wabtec reacted favorably to earnings and with the GE share sale impact. Its shares were up 8.5% at $77.15 after almost two hours of trading on Tuesday. Its 52-week range is $61.95 to $115.40, and the consensus target price from Refinitiv was $86.40.

General Electric shares understandably were not that much changed, as its market cap is close to $90 billion. They were up 0.3% at $10.41 on Tuesday, in a 52-week range of $6.40 to $13.25.

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