News & Press

GE Completes Acquisition of EST

From GE Infrastructure:

GE Infrastructure, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), has completed its acquisition of Edwards Systems Technology (EST), the fire detection systems business of SPX Corporation (NYSE: SPW).

"Acquiring Edwards positions us as a leader in the $5 billion fire detection and life safety segment," said Bill Woodburn, President and CEO of GE Infrastructure. "By combining Edwards' technology and channel strength with the broader Security offering of GE, we can now offer an integrated facility management solution. We see significant revenue and cost synergies with this combination, and expect the acquisition to be accretive to GE's 2005 earnings."

According to Ken Boyda, President & CEO of GE Infrastructure's Security business, "We're seeing a convergence of technologies in the security arena, and a strong fire & life safety business is key to presenting an integrated facility management solution. Since fire detection systems are the only universally mandated security technology, there is significant opportunity for us to grow sales in complementary areas like access control, video surveillance and related services for commercial and large scale infrastructure projects".

The business will become a part of GE Infrastructure, Security's Engineered Systems business. Both GE and Edwards Systems Technology were already InterTECH Security supply partners before the transaction.

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