July 07, 2008 at 12:00 pm by Tom Lydon
NBC Universal is gearing up to purchase The Weather Channel and Weather.com, which might help exchange traded funds (ETFs) that count NBC’s parent company, GE (GE), as a top holding.
The deal is to purchase the channel and site from a private company for $3.5 billion. NBC was the lone bidder after Time Warner Inc. dropped out and CBS Corp. never moved beyond an expression of interest, reports Seth Sutel for the Associated Press.
Weather.com has 37 million unique visitors monthly, making it one of the top 15 websites. The Weather Channel has estimated annual revenues of $550 million.
GE is 2.2% of assets in the Diamonds Trust, Series 1 (DIA). The company is one of the original components of the Dow Jones industrial average that remains to this day. DIA is down 13.9% year-to-date.
GE is also a component of:
- Vanguard Industrials (VIS): down 14.4% year-to-date; 21.3% of holdings
- PowerShares FTSE RAFI Industrials (PRFN): down 14.2% year-to-date; 15.4% of holdings
- iShares Dow Jones US Industrial (IYJ): down 13.3% year-to-date; 14.9% of holdings
- SPDRs (SPY): down 13.1% year-to-date; 2.5% of holdings
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