In a presentation yesterday for select financial media, GE Capital divulged some rare, consolidated data on its Australian businesses. The data, quoted below, is somewhat stylised and collated in a way that attempts to apply Australian accounting standards to consolidated operations even though GE does not report in this way internally and nor does it have to report that way to any Australian regulators. GE follows US accounting standards in the preparation of financial reports for its owner, General Electric.Taking this stylised view GE "reported" a headline loss of $902 million in 2008 compared with a headline profit of $516 million in 2007.On a cash basis GE made a profit of $263 million in 2008, a slight improvement on a cash profit of $243 million in 2007.Write-downs on two sold or closed businesses cost GE Capital $614 million last year. Of this, $368 million represented the write-down in the mortgages business (of which one part, Wizard Home Loans, was sold to Aussie Home Loans) while $203 million was the loss in value on the motor solutions business that GE simply shut. Other restructuring costs (including redundancies) cost GE $43 million.Fair market valuations on interest rate swaps cost GE (notionally) $627 million since GE, in Australia, does not employ hedge accounting (though GE Money globally does do so).Local management was not willing to disclose the financial results on which management is judged by General Electric though Steve Sargent, CEO of GE in Australia and New Zealand, said they were not currently meeting targets.GE reported gross loans of $34.0 billion at the end of 2008, down nine per cent from $37.3 billion in 2007. Using the cash earnings and this asset figure GE is producing a return on assets in the order of 0.8 per cent.Loss provisions in these stylised financials were $301 million in 2008, up from $230 million in 2007, and not a bad result given the group's lending in the middle market where the group lends on an asset basis, with security.Loans 90 days or more past due were $169 million at the end of 2008, up from $115 million at the end of 2007. Restructured loans increased to $121 million from $58 million over the year.GE took the trouble to present this version of its consolidated financial result for 2008 in response to the continuing interest of financial media in the topic, and to provide an antidote to the partial view that would emerge from reporting some of the 36 GE entities for which the group is obliged to file statutory accounts. GE (like many other unlisted companies with a December balance date) was due to file those accounts with ASIC yesterday.