For the first nine months of 2002, commercial and consumer finance contributed 25.5% to GE's total profits before interest, taxes and other items, up from 24.5% for the same period in 2001.

Gross said the real reason was that GE might be shunned by the market for commercial paper–short-term borrowings–because it lacks sufficient bank credit lines to back its commercial paper.

The ABB deal is the first since GE announced in July that it would split GE Capital in Stamford into four separate businesses: equipment management, insurance, commercial finance and consumer finance.

June 8, 2004--FX4, LLC recently purchased 38 Arby's units in Phoenix. With a total of 47 units, FX4 now is the largest Arby's ...