The European Commission, as expected, today announced that it was blocking the proposed $45 billion blockbuster merger of General Electric and Honeywell International.
'The European Commission has decided to prohibit the proposed acquisition by General Electric of Honeywell,' the 20-member commission, meeting in Strasbourg, said in a statement issued in Brussels this afternoon.
It marked the first time that a US corporate merger has been blocked solely by EU authorities, and risked opening new sores in relations between the US and Europe.
GE announced its plans to purchase Honeywell last October. US officials had already given the deal a green light, leaving the EU as the last hurdle.
Had the GE-Honeywell deal gone through, it would have been the biggest industrial takeover in corporate history. It also would have capped the remarkable career of GE's legendary chairman Jack Welch.
GE is the world's biggest conglomerate, with interests ranging from aerospace to finance and media. Last year GE reported a turnover of $130 billion and a profit of $12.7 billion. Its stock market capitalisation is $475 billion, making it the world's top industrial group.
For the same year, Honeywell pulled in revenues of $25 billion, nearly half of which came from its aeronautics activities. Its Aerospace Solutions unit reported an operating profit of $2.2 billion, the majority of the entire group's profit of $3.6 billion.
