Flannery cut Lee off. They had an idea already in motion, he told the banker. GE was ready to cut a profitable chunk of GE Capital loose, throwing a little over the side to show investors that they were serious about reducing its dependency on the financial services unit that had led to such lingering disgust. Actually, a giant spin-off was in the making. What had been a unit of GE Capital that funded store-branded credit cards and layaway financing plans at outlets like Walmart would become its own company, with shares of stock swapped out to GE shareholders. By creating a new public company,
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