Wabtec, GE Transportation complete merger

Wabtec Corp. announced today it has completed its merger with GE Transportation, a former business unit of GE.

The merger combines Wabtec's range of freight, transit and electronics products with GE Transportation's equipment, services and digital solutions in the locomotive, mining, marine, stationary power and drilling industries, Wabtec officials said in a press release.

With the transaction, GE sold a portion of GE Transportation assets to Wabtec, spun off a portion of GE Transportation to GE shareholders and then GE Transportation merged with a wholly owned subsidiary of Wabtec. Wabtec shareholders own 50.8 percent of Wabtec on a fully diluted basis and GE shareholders own 24.3 percent of Wabtec on a fully diluted basis.

GE owns common stock and non-voting convertible preferred stock, which together represent a 24.9 percent economic interest in Wabtec on a fully diluted basis. GE also received approximately $2.9 billion in cash at closing.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring together nearly four centuries of collective experience to create a technologically advanced leader with a highly complementary set of capabilities to move and improve the world," said Wabtec President and Chief Executive Officer Raymond Betler.

The combined company is expected to achieve revenue of more than $8 billion in 2019.

"Our shared focus on innovation, collaboration and continuous improvement will enable us to unlock new value for our shareholders, customers, employees and the industry," said Rafael Santana, who served as GE Transportation's president and CEO and is now president and CEO of Wabtec's freight segment.

Santana added: "Together we are well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities created by industry trends toward efficiency and improved performance and, with the merger complete, we are focused on leveraging our complementary portfolios to spur growth."

According to Wabtec officials, the combination of the companies is expected to:
• create a leading equipment, aftermarket services and digital solutions provider across the transportation sector. Wabtec expects to benefit from the cyclical tailwinds the industry faced in 2018, including volume growth of 38 million carloads and intermodal units.
• improve utilization and accelerate path to automation. The combination of GE Transportation's digital solutions and analytics systems with Wabtec's electronic systems and positive train control capabilities is expected to improve safety, efficiency and productivity across the industry and accelerate railroads' path to advanced train automation.
• deliver improved customer outcomes through expanded monitoring and services.