GE today revealed a takeover of a number of companies in the Bouncy Castle rental industry catapulting it into the number one place for inflatable Child Leisure Services in one fail swoop.
517 small businesses were simultaneous acquired by GE Finance over the space of 16 hours yesterday in a co-ordinated worldwide operation shrouded in secrecy.
Jeff Smitkins from Battle, East Sussex is a part time milkman and runs a business that operates in the south east coastal area of the UK, he owns approximately four bouncy castles. He was acquired by GE yesterday afternoon.
" These two blokes just knocked on my door and offered me a large cheque and a seat on the board of GE Bouncy Castle Group UK" Said Mr Smitkins "Jenny, the wife, was out at Asda, so I rang her on her mobile, she thought it was a good idea so I signed the form. She got home before the chaps had left so she made them a cup of tea and we shared the trifle she had bought as a little celebration" Added the new GE board member.
CEO of GE Jeff Immelt, held a press conference later in the day to announce the strategy.
"Today we have made a bold move to drive our business growth in an unexpected direction. We are looking to develop synergies with our other business units but essentially this was about targeting growth in a market where we were not a big player" Began Immelt.
When asked why he replied "our analyst community identified some time ago that GE as a group often hired bouncy castles for family related events and more than 80% of our senior staff used such services at least once a year dependant on their relevant children count. With that kind of market penetration it was a only a small leap of imagination to decide to acquire the market"
Immelt showed GE calculations that the combined market for Bouncy Castles in the CALA and EMEA regions alone was in the order of an annual revenue of $1.2Billion. "that's bigger than light bulbs" exclaimed the clearly pleased CEO as he kicked off his shoes and headed for the slide.
There were murmurs of dissent from the small business left untouched by the GE buying spree, concerns were aired by the Independent Association of Children's Entertainers that a large corporate is liable to drive down cost in a market that is already heavily competitive. There Spokesman Choky The Happy Clown from Wantage said "Our members are concerned that this large corporation could afford to drive down retail costs in order to drive them out of the business and allow them to acquire even more market reach, our members will not stand for this" he said as he sniffed a flower on his lapel and squirted water all over his nose.
When asked about this concern Jack Immelt relied by stating that the market is big enough to support independents "our growth market is China, over there they have only one bouncy castle per 12,000 citizens, we can grow that market significantly in the coming years, that's where we will take our expertise and market knowledge, and where we will achieve growth"
Shares in GE rose 2% on the news.
