OK...; soooo, what does that do to getting that new version of the Advantium that's due out this month. Yep, and you are right, what about warranty and CS? I guess they'll auction that too, or sell the business to someone else. But guess what, although I didn't by GE products, I got warranty through my appliance dealer - WHICH IS THROUGH GE!!! hmmmm...

Thanks for this helpful info!

You said GE was selling its appliance business. I don't mean to be parsing words like Bill Clinton, or sound picky. but GE is "auctioning" its appliance business, which is a big difference.

In an auction the outcome for the brand is really iffy. The buyers may only want the hard assets, or they may buy it for the name. No telling what the changes to the product will be or if they'll even be a GE brand. Even if there is a GE brand, likely the products will go downhill quickly as they are cheapened.

There is too much competition on the high end among the Euro applicances, Wolf, Viking and Thermador for another high end brand. So there is no where to go but the bottom. Kenmore is likely to be dominant in the middle even though they don't make anything themselves.

GE is likely to have to continue warranty service on the units already sold, but they don't care once the business is gone. Whatever problems they had in the past will be multiplied by 10. For them it's a needless expense. The same is true for spare parts.

Even if someone else decides to keep the line in tact, there will be changes. Warranty for units previously sold, if they agree to take that over, is a losing game for the new buyer because they didn't receive any revenue to pay for the warranty.

For those who like GE appliances, it's game over. It will be years before anyone can tell the impact this has on either the brand, the service or the quality.

I was buying GE for a new house, but that's not going to happen now.

Jackiemom

Dang! The Advantium 240 is at the top of my shortlist for a microwave, and the ZET2 for ovens. :-(

Much depends on who actually buys the division, and what they intend to do with it after the acquisition. There is some valuable intellectual property that might get sold off elsewhere. The bad aspect is now that the GE appliance division is up for grabs it affects employee moral, vendor moral, and customer moral. I have to agree with jackiemom...this current party is over.

Continuing on with 451F's comments, with this announcement the GE appliance division is essentially dead, until a buyer is confirmed and the future direction made clear. Nobody in their right mind is going to buy a GE appliance until the future is clarified.

One little note-manufacturers are required, by federal law, to ensure that spare parts are available for things they sold for 5 years after the date of the sale. Now, GE, as part of their sale, could/will probably require the new owner to assume that responsibility as part of the sale. So for at least a while, owners are protected.

The same general situation applies to warranties, both regular and extended. They are contracts, and the only way GE can get out of them is to include them in the sale.

Any buyer is going to support current GE products because it preserves business. Why would a company spend $8b on a package of assets only to say "we don't care about the millions of existing customers--we're going to build the business from scratch"? Short run I have no worries; long run, who knows what it means for the GE brand (if that even exists).

Hey - it could actually improve! GE has never been noted for customer service. I've had GE appliances for 30 years and while most of them have worked perfectly I did have a compactor and refrigerator replaced because GE couldn't fix them. And it took months of phone calls to get that done.

GE has been thinking about doing this for a long time, especially the repair aspect of the appliance business. It hasn't been profitable enough for management. And GE dumps anything that doesn't make the profit they expect.

I agree that most likely anyone buying them will most likely be doing so to continue and grow the business - unless they just want to melt down the existing inventory of appliances for the metal :-)

GE is obligated to honor warranties and supply spare parts. However, GE is not required to give good customer service or send someone spare parts in a prompt manner after they are out of the appliance business.

It might seem logical on the surface that the new buyer would want to continue the business and if someone had bought the business during the last two years while GE was trying to sell it, I would think that the brand would go on.

This is an auction, not a merger, acquisition, or sale. Those are very different things.

The one thing that is not going into the auction is the name. Whatever comes out of this won't be GE appliances anymore. Customers who receive bad service or can't get spare parts in less than six months time will blame GE. Do you really think GE cares?

In an auction, very few conditions exist on the buyers--like having to provide warranty service. Sometimes an auction is only for the assets. Warranty service is a liability, so it would stay with GE.

So let's see. GE had 150 people answering phones before the auction. After the auction, they'll cut that to 3 people. So yeah, service won't be a problem, but the hold time might be.

Whatever happens, happens. There's nothing anyone can do about it, but I won't be buying any GE appliances no matter what lies their distributors tell me.

jackiemom

I can only imagine what the employees of this division are thinking? Will they receive a WFR? All this makes for poor situation with no winners; surely not the consumer. Welch knew how to make money at others expense, but he left a legacy headed for failure, and spun-off execs who were disciples of his to wreak havoc elsewhere (e.g., Home Depot, and many more examples). The only exec who appears to be matching Welch in ruthlessness and lack of how to plan for the long-run is Mark Hurd of HP who has shown profit through WFR, benefits stripping, and little else.

If my memory serves me correctly I believe that General Electric was the first in American history to be taken to court for built-in obsolescence.

I think some folks here are misunderstanding what's meant by "auction". This is not like a foreclosure auction. It's an "auction" to sell the business as a going concern to the highest bidder. Sotheby's won't be handling it--Goldman Sachs will, and their job is to find the highest "bidder" to buy this part of the company. I'd be pretty confident that whoever buys the company will get to use the GE name for a period of time, at least in a "GE by Siemens" way. And GE won't be handling customer service--that too will be handled by the buyer.

Love to look here but have never posted. Sometime last summer we were notified of a recall on our GE dishwasher. Ge offered $100 if you purchased one of their lower end models and $300 if you bought one of the high end models. I opted to buy a top of the line stainless steel one. Since I did the stupidest thing when we were purchasing the house 9 years ago and picked almond appliances, I promised myself if anything ever broke I would go to stainless steel. Hubby's a little tight when it comes to these types of things (if it works, why replace it). So I figured it should take another lifetime to get the rest replaced. Guess HGTV got to him. (I thought he wasn't paying attention). One day he ask me if I thought we could get some of those granite countertops. I almost fell out of my chair. Well needless to say before it was out of his mouth I was dragging him out the door and to our friends that just had their's done. In October they finished our beautiful counters (midnight storm). Long story short I've been researching and trying to figure out what brand to buy but decided since the dishwasher was Ge, to have everything in the same family. (Electrolux when I build). Low and behold - did I not order a refrigerator and stove (on line, it's shipped) the day before Ge's big announcement. Being that we won't be making these purchases for another decade, I'm pretty nervous. Especially after reading these posts. Just my thoughts, but my kitchen's gonna look awesome.

Don't be nervous. The Appliance Div is being sold because it can't INCREASE its profits by over 10% PER YEAR every year. Well duh!

I'm sure it will be around a long time and do very well on its own or as part of another appliance company.

Stretchad, Thanks for bringing this to our attention. But, for all those who have been so patient in helping me make a decision and I finally decided to GE Mono, oven, refridge and MW...what am I going to do now?! OH MY!

I don't understand the panic - after the warranty runs out - typically a year - you can hire anyone to service them. Parts will have to be available.

You're right Laat2. Besides life expectancy on alot of these appliances are quite long (12 -15 years for refrigerators). Had a Hotpoint in my old house for 15 years and was still working fine when we sold. Not a thing wrong with my Ge profile now except it's the wrong color. May put it in the garage. Depends on the electric expense.

Argh - just installed an Advantium and a ZET1 in my new kitchen. Bought extended warranties on all my appliances - uh - with GE. I am not going to think about this!

Although very likely, a sale isn't a certainty yet - GE is also considering a joint venture with another company (LG? Haier?) that would extend their reach internationally. CEO Jeff Immelt, who himself worked his way up through the appliance division, is bothered that GEA is predominantly an American business and thus unable to match the profitability and reach of other manufacturers with global markets. Many of these (LG, Samsung, Bosch, Electrolux, Haier) are rapidly eating into the US market. The implosion of the housing bubble (and the remodeling boom it spawned) is hurting sales too, but no appliance manufacturer can afford to continually enter and exit the market depending on the year's housing market.

A spin-off is another possibility.

If they are to sell, they need to find a buyer. Haier, which made an unsuccessful bid for Maytag a few years ago, now has another shot, as do the several venture capitalist firms that made bids. And whereas Maytag was a money pit with increasingly shoddy quality control and an aging product line built in unprofitable factories (as Whirlpool rapidly found out), GE Appliances is actually making money.

All they're really saying now is that they have started a "strategic review" of the business, which is corporatespeak for "please, somebody buy me out!". It is highly likely that they'll license the "GE" brand and logo to the buyer, just as they did with their TV sets decades ago - any recognisable brand name lives forever nowadays. In any case, the appliance business is just a drop in the bucket in today's GE, which prefers big-margin businesses nowadays.

Sounds to me like the appliance division can't leverage its core competencies on a going forward basis to induce win-win situations for all stakeholders. In other words, the metric on the spreadsheet didn't go as high as the CEO wanted it to go. I have Monogram and ain't worried one bit. I would buy them again if I were building today.

The GE brand name.

What does it mean when a brand name is sold to another company who uses different designs, technologies, materials, engineering, and manufacturing techniques. We are left with the brand name but what does that really mean? Will we have a "GE" or will we have something else with the GE name on it? How important is a brand name?

Brand names are superfluous these days. Years ago White Westinghouse made products. Then they disappeared. Then the name Westinghouse came back out of thin air. Does anyone really think it, or other brands like Zenith or Bell & Howell, have anything to do with the products in the past? Not one thing except the name.

I see the brand name thing as a scheme. Older people remember certain brands and probably think favorably of them. So when the brand re-appears, it must be decent, right? No, a chintzy company bought the rights to the name and is producing craptacular stuff.

There are very few brand names that are worth anything anymore. Why else would we use terms like FriGEmore on the forum? Panasonic, Braun and Honda are decent brands. Kenmore and Costco's Kirkland are the only two "hollow" brands that I can think of that are good. But the list of spotty names is growing.

So don't worry about the GE auction. It's not the first or last brand to mutate.

You are probably right. keeping a brand name alive may be done for the physiological effect on consumers and the bottom line for the acquiring company. Consumers see the name, they remember their past experience, or their parents experience and they jump for it. Meanwhile the folks who designed and made the original appliance are long gone. The outside looks of the appliance may look the same or slightly improved, but the inside mechanics are something else. For example: KitchenAid mixers.

I work for GE Applainces/GE Monogram. I can assure you that my morale is high. I understand why the Appliance division wants/needs to go global in order to remain a viable company 10-15 years from now. I also understand why GE does not want to spend the money to build up a global appliannce infrastructure from the ground up. it would be expensive and might not meet GE's required rate of return for such investments.

According to Furtune, GE has the 4th most valuable brand in the world. As so many people associate the GE brand with the appliance division (instead of Power Systems, for example), GE would be foolish to sell the business to a company that planned to cheapen the products or sell off the assets. Tht would just end up hurting GE.

I suspect that GE will sell the business to a another global applaince comapny that does not have a large footprint in North America. That company would also be foolish to pay top dollar for GE Appliances only to do things to ruin what is such a strong brand. It's just not in their best interest.

One thing I am certain of is that GE's competitors will try to take advantage of the situation by spreading seeds of doubt in the minds of potential GE consumers. It's the nature of business.

As for those looking to buy the new Advantium, they are still on schedule. They are not going away. Again, it would be crazy to drop such a popular appliance.

So Luster, what's the schedule?
For a long time I heard of a June release, but someone at Lowes told me they received an email a few days ago with release dates being pushed back to august-september

bump --any update, luster? maybe i'll start a new thread.