General Electric has paid over $7 billion in investment banking fees since 2000, as Wall Street banks benefited from a frenzied trend of dealmaking and the eventual break-up.
- GE incurred $2.3 billion on mergers and acquisition advice only, as it grew its enormous business empire via hundreds of deals. On Tuesday, the group announced the plants to break into three independent companies.
- The rise and fall of the GE Group have led to significant earnings for Wall Street, spending $3.3bn on fees associated with bonds. The conglomerate further spent $800m and $792m, on loan and equity fees, respectively.
- The next biggest spenders were Citi and JPMorgan that made $6.8bn payments on the bankers as GM was the biggest spender for industrial companies, with $3.8bn.
Critics have argued that outsized fees indicate how bankers put more effort into finalizing lucrative transactions rather than acting in the best interests of their clients.
GE up +0.25% JPM up +0.33%,C up +0.35%, Pre-market trading
Source: Reuters.
