GE Appliances

GE Appliances, formerly known as GE Appliances & Lighting and GE Consumer & Industrial when owned by GE, is an American manufacturer of home appliances, headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky.

GE Appliances is a subsidiary of Chinese conglomerate Haier and is one of the largest suppliers of appliances in the world. It was created in January 2004 when GE Consumer Products (founded in 1905) merged with GE Industrial Systems (founded in 1930) to form GE Consumer & Industrial. From 2010 to late 2014, GE Appliances & Lighting was a sub-business under GE Home & Business Solutions.

On September 8, 2014, General Electric agreed to sell GE Appliances & Lighting to the Swedish appliance manufacturer Electrolux for US$3.3 billion in cash. The Electrolux acquisition was the result of General Electric's nearly six-year-long plan to sell the Appliance & Lighting division that included negotiations with Electrolux and other firms, such as Samsung and LG. The deal will combine Electrolux's existing primary U.S. mainstream appliance brand, Frigidaire, with GE's stable of products, including the Monogram line of luxury appliances. As part of the deal, Electrolux agreed to continue using the G.E. Appliances brand names, such as the mainstream "GE" appliance marque, for a limited period, and also agreed to assume General Electric's 48.4% stake in Mabe, a Mexican appliance manufacturer.

The transaction — the largest ever for Electrolux, the second-largest consumer appliance manufacturer after Whirlpool — would have nearly doubled Electrolux's business in North America (the market that represented nearly 29% of Electrolux's revenue in 2013). The deal carried a US$175 million termination fee clause if Electrolux was unable to complete the acquisition. It was terminated in December 2015 due to regulatory concerns.

GE announced in early 2016 that Chinese appliance conglomerate Haier would purchase the appliance division for $5.4 billion.

In 1951 construction began in Louisville, Kentucky on Appliance Park, the 1,000-acre (400 ha) manufacturing facility that would eventually employ 25,000 full-time employees. At the start of the park, Appliance Park was a self-sufficient city that provided for its own needs, right down to mail handling (until recently, Appliance Park had its own post office, staffed by United States Postal Service employees, to handle the complex's high volume of mail). In fact, Appliance Park was such a large and self-sustaining facility that the Postal Service granted Appliance Park its own ZIP code, 40225.