Fisher & Paykel Appliances sold its whiteware manufacturing business to Haier four years ago and now finds itself in good company. US General Electric has done the same thing.GE and Haier announced the deal at the end of last week, saying the companies will cooperate world-wide to expand their business. Which is pretty much what F&P said in 2012 when it sold its appliance business to the Shanghai-listed company. The acquisition enables GE to focus on its high-end business—including jet engines and power turbines—instead of washing machines and consumer finance.Again, this echoes the F&P policy at the time which was to get out of the low end with its imperative on personal service details which no matter how much out-sourced always tend to roll back on the main manufacturer.The sale of its consumer brand side meant that F&P similarly started focusing on its advanced technology areas, notably in health, where price tends to be secondary to performance.GE and F&P thus shared a similar imperative. Namely to get above the noise level and into sectors where it had much stronger control over its margins.In some ways the F&P rush to quit the consumer business was rather more dignified that GE’s.GE has been running an auction for the century-old appliance business since it abandoned its sale to Sweden’s Electrolux AB in December. The U.S. Justice Department had sued to block that transaction, saying the combination of the two companies would hurt competition.

From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk