GE Commercial Finance Hires Michael Barfuss to Open Frankfurt Leveraged Finance Office

FRANKFURT and LONDON, July 18 /PRNewswire/ --

- Move is Part of Ongoing GE Strategy to Expand European Corporate Lending Offer

GE Commercial Finance, the business-to-business financing unit of GE (NYSE: GE), today announced the appointment of Michael Barfuss to open its Frankfurt Leveraged Finance office.

"We believe Germany offers excellent growth potential specifically in the mid-cap market," said Rich Laxer, President and CEO of GE Commercial Finance's European Corporate Lending business. "With our strong balance sheet, our Triple A rating and broad industrial experience, we believe GE brings something unique to German companies. We will offer German companies lending solutions at every stage of their growth cycle in addition to the benefit of our deep knowledge of a broad range of industries."

Michael Barfuss joins GE Commercial Finance from the Bank of Scotland where he was co-head of its German operations. His responsibilities included the generation and execution of new acquisition finance business, management of the loan portfolio and regulatory, accounting and compliance affairs.

Previously, he was Director of Structured Finance and headed the acquisition finance business for Kloeckner Pentaplast and Messer Griesheim. Before that, he was in charge of corporate banking at IKB Deutsche Industriebank.

"The German LBO debt market has been exploding recently and has attracted commitments of close to Euro 25bn," according to Barfuss. "We believe there are great opportunities and we have ambitious targets. We will be putting a strong team in place over the next few months to drive GE Commercial Finance's expansion in this key market."

About GE Commercial Finance

GE Commercial Finance is the business-to-business finance unit of General Electric. With deep industry expertise and lending, leasing and financing services of every kind, GE Commercial Finance plays a key role in helping its customers grow. Conducting business in 35 countries, GE Commercial Finance has assets of over US$230 billion and is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, USA.

About GE

General Electric (NYSE: GE) is Imagination at Work - a diversified technology, media and financial services company focused on solving some of the world's toughest problems.

Contact: Kathleen Merrill, +44-(0)20-7302-6428