General Electric intends to buy Alstom’s power department

It appears the US conglomerate, General Electric, is in talks to buy a part one of France’s biggest private-sector employers, Alstom.

Although first rumors stated that GE intends to acquire the whole Alstom company, their interest actually focuses on global power turbines and grid equipment.

These first reports created a great deal of agitation among French economists, urging Arnaud Montebourg, France’s Economy Minister, to demand a meeting be organized with GE in view of ‘patriotic concerns'.

Alstom’s intentions of selling its train and signaling business had been made public prior to GE’s interest in the company, as a strategy to diminish its cash flow problems.

Shares of conglomerate Bouygues, which owns 29% of Alstom, rose by as mush as 4.2 percent on Friday, as a result of the ongoing talks between GE and the French energy company.