GE industrial spinoff tough right now: CFO

BOSTON (Reuters) - The credit crunch and housing slump have made it harder for General Electric Co (GE.N) to spin off its consumer and industrial arm to shareholders, but the U.S. conglomerate continues to pursue that option, GE's chief financial officer told Reuters.

GE continues to get queries about buying just the appliance part of that business, and would sell it for the right price.

"If we got a tremendous offer for appliances, we'd have to evaluate that," Keith Sherin said in a phone interview. The company "continues to get a tremendous amount of interest" in the business, he said on Friday.

GE said in May it wanted to sell its appliance unit -- the No. 2 player in the category in the United States behind Whirlpool Corp (WHR.N). In July, it changed course, saying it would wrap that business together with its lighting operation and some electrical-distribution equipment businesses, and spin off the combined business to shareholders.

The biggest barrier to the spin-off, which GE aims to do next year, is the slumping housing market, Sherin said.

"If you look today with housing where it is and with questions about the economy where it is, it's a challenging transaction," Sherin said. "The world we're seeing today is (in) a lot of turmoil. But once the world sees that there will be a better day ahead, I think this is still a very viable transaction. We're still working on it."

The company, which also makes jet engines, does commercial lending and runs the NBC Universal media business, is "fairly confident" in its $170 billion order backlog, because many of its products are sold into projects that are planned over a long time, and is not likely to be canceled due to short-term stock market moves, he said.

"For the near term we feel reasonably confident about our backlog, and we'll have to watch the global markets as they progress," Sherin said. "Usually if you take a gas turbine, by the time we're shipping, there's a balance of plant that's already been built, and we're inserting ours into what's a much bigger project. And somebody who's got that much already going probably isn't going to stop for the final piece."

(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)