PARIS: Shareholders approved on Friday the 12.4-billion-euro ($15.2bn) sale of Alstom’s energy assets to US group General Electric (GE) by which the French company will refocus on high speed trains.

“It is the best solution for the future of Alstom,” chief exe­c­u­tive Patrick Kron said at the meeting marked by sha­rp exchanges, saying the com­pany had lost sufficient scale to compete in the energy sector.

Nevertheless, the sale that sees Alstom sell off about 70 per cent of the Company, was approved by 99.187pc of the votes. GE won a two-month deeply political battle to buy the energy arm of Alstom in late June, in the face of initial French government opposition and a rival joint offer from Germany’s Siemens and Mitsubishi of Japan.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2014