General Electric filed on Thursday to spin off its North American retail finance unit in an initial public offering, taking the next step to reduce its GE Capital division.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the business said that it planned to rename itself Synchrony Financial.
The move is intended to help the conglomerate reduce the size of GE Capital, which ran into trouble during the financial crisis because of its huge holdings in real estate loans. The goal has been to transform it into a smaller, stable industrial lending business.
The retail finance operation, which underpins a variety of stores’ credit card operations, has long been seen as a nonessential business for GE Capital. G.E. announced last fall that it planned to file for an I.P.O. of the unit in the first quarter of this year.
Even so, Synchrony - and with 62 million active accounts as of the end of last year - is a big division, financing $93.9 billion in sales in 2013.
Its net interest income has risen for four straight years, growing to $10.6 billion last year. Its profit dipped slightly last year, to just under $2 billion.
The prospectus gave few further details, other than a preliminary $100 million fund-raising target meant to determine registration fees.
The company plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol SYF.
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley were listed as lead underwriters for the offering.
