Sweden's Electrolux AB paid $3.3 billion in cash for General Electric's appliances business. GE's century-old household appliance business could help the Swedish company expand beyond its core European market, where growth has trailed that in North America. The deal will be financed by a bridge facility, and the company plans a rights issue to raise about 25 percent of the price after the deal's expected closing next year. General Electric put the profitable but low-margin appliance business up for sale in 2008, but talks fizzled out as the global recession took hold. The unit is almost exclusively focused on the U.S. market and has lacked global scale.
