Episode summary
GE to Buy Consolidated Precision Products for $11.75 Billion | Bloomberg Intelligence
Bloomberg Intelligence
· · 22 min · Hosts: Paul Sweeney, Scarlet Fu · Guests: George Ferguson, Mandeep Singh, Derek Mogull, Hema Parmer
Summary
GE Aerospace agreed to buy Consolidated Precision Products for $11.75 billion, a move the guest said looks less like a classic conglomerate acquisition and more like a supply-chain play. The deal should help GE secure castings and other critical components, expand engine output, and potentially gain share in the current jet-engine cycle as airlines and airframers struggle with tight capacity. He also said regulators will likely scrutinize the transaction because it could concentrate an important part of the aerospace supply chain.
On the tech side, the panel focused on two contrasting headlines: Anthropic backing away from a proposed purchase of Decart AI, and Qualcomm signing Amazon.com as a data-center chip customer in a deal that includes up to $4 billion of warrants. The analyst argued that partnerships are becoming a key way to gain access to AI infrastructure, especially as hyperscalers and chipmakers fight for scarce fab capacity.
A separate analyst said AI is transforming storage from a cyclical hardware business into a more durable growth story. He projected almost 5x growth in storage spending by 2030, with flash prices rising sharply and long-term agreements extending visibility into the early 2030s. The episode closed with a look at Millennium, where the reporting said the hedge fund is nearing $100 billion in assets and has built a more institutional, multi-strategy model to avoid being capacity constrained.
Key takeaways
- The guest said GE Aerospace is buying Consolidated Precision Products to relieve supply bottlenecks and boost engine throughput, not just to expand scale.
- The guest expects regulators to scrutinize the $11.75 billion deal because precision casting capacity is strategically important in aerospace.
- The analyst said Qualcomm’s Amazon deal makes sense because access to scarce fab capacity is now a bigger constraint than demand.
- The analyst said AI-driven storage demand could lift industry spending nearly 5x by 2030, with flash ASPs up 3 to 4x this year alone.
- The reporting said Millennium is at $97 billion in assets and could exceed $130 billion as it expands its multi-strategy platform.
Notable quotes
“This looks to me like GE is going out and buying into their supply chain”
“So the way I see it is storage industry has bifurcated into the legacy cyclical industry”
“I mean, look, uh, and at this point of time, all the chip companies, especially the ones that are not Nvidia”
How the episode opens
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I had an M&A trade here today that I think got the attention of a lot of folks. General Electric GE to buy Consolidated Precision Products for 11.75 billion. I have no idea what Consolidated Precision Products does for a living, but our next guest does.
George uh Ferguson joins us. He covers all the airlines, all the aerospace companies. Uh George, first of all, I was talking earlier this morning to John Tucker.
I can't remember the last time GE made a major acquisition. I've spent the last 20 years, you know, hearing about all the stuff they're divesting.
Good point. — Here's G buying it. George, talk to us about this deal. What's GE doing here?
Yeah, they have, like you said, largely been devesting and turning themselves into a pure play arrow. This looks to me like GE is going out and buying into their supply chain. My guess is they're looking for obstacles to building more engines and more engine parts because everybody's having a problem right now getting the throughput they want.
Um, and look, I think it probably sets GE up for uh, you know, for the potential maybe even to take more share on this generation of uh, jet engines. So, one of the big challenges right now for the uh, airframers Boeing and Airbus, especially Airbus, is getting enough engines to build aircraft and deliver to customers. Both of them have backlogs that are about a decade long, definitely drive well into the 2030s because it's not a sequential backlog.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- ge aerospace consolidation precision products acquisition
- ai storage spending forecast
- anthropic decart ai acquisition decision
- qualcomm amazon data center chip deal
- millennium management hedge fund growth
Companies and tickers mentioned
- GE
- QCOM
- AMZN
- STX
- WDC
- GE Aerospace
- Consolidated Precision Products
- Warburg Pincus
- Berkshire Partners
- Anthropic PBC
- Decart AI
- Qualcomm Inc.
- Amazon.com Inc.
- Seagate
- Western Digital
- SanDisk
- Kioxia
- Everpure
- Millennium Management
Watch the episode
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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