Shrinking assets paid off for these two

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Both GE and ABB (see box) are selling less important assets to concentrate on their main industrialequipment businesses. That should improve their earnings and cut their risk. GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. $25 (New York symbol GE; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 10.1 billion; Market cap: $252.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; Dividend yield: 3.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.ge.com) makes machinery for power generation and distribution (such as turbines) and other products, like jet engines, medical equipment, appliances, lighting and locomotives. The company continues to shrink GE Capital, which mainly provides loans to GE’s clients. In 2014, this business supplied 42% of the company’s operating earnings, but it aims to cut that to 25% by 2016. As part of this plan, GE recently agreed to sell GE Capital’s consumer-lending operations in Australia and New Zealand for $6.3 billion. The proceeds will help cover the cost of the company’s recent alliance with France’s Alstom SA, a leading…