GE plans to exit U.S. retail lending Fri Aug 30, 2013 12:13pm EDT (Reuters) - General Electric Co (GE.N) plans to spin off the U.S. consumer lending operations of its finance arm GE Capital, as the conglomerate moves to focus on its core industrial operations, a person familiar with the matter said. GE Capital nearly sank the whole company during the 2008 financial crisis, and the company has been trying to shrink the division's portfolio ever since. An initial public offering of the consumer lending division, which issues store credit cards for 55 million Americans, could come early next year, but its size has not yet been determined, according to the Wall Street Journal. (link.reuters.com/sug72v) "A spin-off of GE's consumer business would be a significant positive for the company, as it would expedite its shift to industrial earnings solidly outgrowing GE Capital," said William Blair & Company analyst Nicholas Heyman, in a note. GE declined to comment. The consumer division earned $3.24 billion last year and had assets of $139 billion. GE Capital's total assets at the end of 2012 were $539 billion. Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt at a conference in May said the company aimed to trim GE Capital's assets to $300 billion to $350 billion by the end of 2014 through "staged exits" of some non-core assets. JPMorgan was not immediately available. William Blair analysts said the consumer division could potentially be valued at $35 billion, or about $3 to $4 per GE share. Reporting by Patricia Kranz and Jessica Toonkel in New York and Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Steve Orlofsky