General Electric Co ( id="symbol_GE.N_0">GE.N) said its financial unit GE Capital Corp would pay $6.5 billion in dividends to the parent in 2013 as part of a plan to reduce the unit's size.
_0">"This announcement is consistent with our goal to reduce the overall size of GE Capital and for it to return significant cash to GE," GE CEO Jeff Immelt said in a statement on Monday.
The dividend payment includes a special dividend of $4.5 billion, the company said.
The dividend payments are planned at 30 percent of GE Capital's total 2013 earnings, GE said. GE Capital paid a first-quarter earnings dividend of $447 million on April 19.
GE Capital, which won regulatory approval to resume returning some of its profit to GE last May, had paid $6.4 billion to the parent company in 2012.
General Electric's shares were almost flat at $23.45 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
(Reporting by Mridhula Raghavan and Bijoy Koyitty in Bangalore)