Continuing its acquisition spree of trucking services firms, GE Capital Solutions said it plans to buy mortgage lender and car leasing giant PHH Corp. and its Ft. Lauderdale-based truck leasing subsidiary, PHH First Fleet, for $1.8 billion cash.
Eden Prairie, MN-based GE Capital – a subsidiary of General Electric Co. – added that it plans to sell off Mount Laruel, NJ-based PHH’s home mortgage operations to The Blackstone Group, a global private investment and advisory firm.
The PHH purchase is one in a series of acquisitions GE has made over the past several years to broaden its offerings to the trucking industry. Its GE Equipment Services division purchased Dallas-based Terion Inc. in February this year, with plans to roll Terion’s trailer tracking product into GE’s VeriWise trailer tracking package. In 2003, GE’s Driver Development division bought our Dallas-based truck driver simulator maker I-Sim LLC.
The PHH deal handsomely broadens GE’s truck and trailer leasing portfolio – making more services available to its Transport International Pool (TIP) trailer leasing subsidiary, which it renamed GE Trailer Fleet Business in 2004, and to Penske Truck Leasing operations.
