Evendale-based GE Aviation will change its name when its parent company General Electric splits into three publicly traded companies.
When General Electric (NYSE: GE) spins off its health care and energy companies into their own businesses, a process that will wrap up by 2024, its remaining aviation business will be rebranded as GE Aerospace, officials announced Monday.
GE CEO Larry Culp Jr., who was named CEO of GE Aviation at the end of June, said in a video announcing the change the decision to retain the GE name as part of the new company was the result of thousands of interviews with customers, employees and shareholders.
“What we heard really validated that the GE brand has tremendous intrinsic value,” he said.
The health care business, spinning off in 2023, will be named GE HealthCare, and the energy business, which will go public in 2024 and include GE’s renewable energy, power generation, digital and energy financial services divisions, will be known as GE Vernova.
Culp said the decision to retain the GE name and monogram as part of all three businesses was designed to leverage the heritage of the brand and the equity it has with consumers.
“Keeping the brand name, the GE name, really provides us with important brand continuity as we move forward,” he said.
The rebranding from GE Aviation to GE Aerospace was done to signal a “new era of possibility,” Culp said, that expands the company’s expertise beyond just aviation, though he did not specify in the video what that entailed. GE Aviation has an installed base of 39,400 commercial and 26,200 military aircraft engines.
Following the spinning off of GE HealthCare and GE Vernova, GE Aerospace will own the GE trademark and license it to the other companies.
GE Aviation is the third-largest manufacturer in Greater Cincinnati, with about 9,000 local employees, according to Courier research, with its headquarters in Evendale; manufacturing facility, support and services in Hebron; and a testing site in Peebles.