GE announced that it has reached an agreement to sell its GE Capital, Transportation Finance business in the U.S. and Canada to BMO Financial Group (BMO).

“With the sale of our Transportation Finance business to BMO, we have again found a buyer with a customer-centric culture who is committed to the industry and growing this business with the help of our tenured and experienced team,” said Keith Sherin, GE Capital chairman and CEO. “We continue to execute on our asset sales and are on track to reduce our ending net investment (ENI) by US$100 billion by the end of 2015 and expect to be substantially done with our exit strategy by the end of 2016,” he added.

GE Capital, Transportation Finance provides wholesale and commercial end-user financing to OEMs, dealers and end users for heavy and medium duty commercial trucks and trailers. BMO will retain the Transportation Finance management team and employees.

As previously announced, GE is embarking on a strategy to create a simpler, more valuable company by reducing the size of its financial businesses through the sale of most GE Capital assets and by focusing on continued investment and growth in its world-class industrial businesses. GE and its Board of Directors have determined that current market conditions are favorable to pursue these dispositions. GE will retain the financing businesses that relate directly to GE’s industrial businesses.

When completed, the transaction, which represents about US$9 billion of ENI, will contribute approximately US$0.7 billion of capital to the overall target of approximately US$35 billion of dividends expected to be paid to GE under this plan (subject to regulatory approval). With this transaction, the total for 2015 announced sales is approximately US$85 billion.

Sherin concluded, “We expect to reach sales agreements for the majority of our U.S. businesses by the end of this year and the sale of our Transportation Finance business, one of our core commercial lending and leasing businesses, gets us closer to that goal.”

The transaction is subject to customary regulatory and other approvals and is expected to close in December of 2015. Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs provided financial advice to GE and Shearman & Sterling LLP provided legal advice.