Company News: Sprint Nextel sees ‘big opportunity’ next year

More than two years after the acquisition that formed Sprint Nextel Corp., the nation’s third-largest wireless provider is about 80 percent done with weaving the two sides together, the company’s chief executive officer said Wednesday.

In a meeting with analysts in New York, Gary Forsee also said the company should see profit margins improve as it begins next year to pare down its two wireless networks to one.

“We have a big opportunity in front of us,” said Forsee, who also serves as Sprint Nextel’s chairman.

Sprint, based in Reston, Va., with operational headquarters in Overland Park, Kan., bought Nextel Communications Inc. in August 2005 and has struggled ever since with merging the two systems. Technical problems and a required swap of frequencies used by Nextel’s press-to-talk network hurt call quality, leading hundreds of thousands of customers to drop the service.

This year, the company began selling phones that work on both the Nextel network and Sprint’s regular CDMA network, and it expects to have 2 million of the devices operating by the end of the year, Forsee said.

“Quitting the troubled subprime lending market will cost General Electric Co. as much as $400 million, the industrial conglomerate has announced.

GE said Tuesday it will take a third-quarter charge of $300 million to $400 million to exit the subprime market.

The subprime losses are among total charges of $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion, including $900 million to $1 billion to write down the value of Lake, GE’s Japanese personal-loan operation, and $500 million for restructuring efforts in GE’s industrial operations.

GE has said it plans to sell the Japanese business.

“Honeywell International Inc. said Wednesday it will provide the major mechanical systems for Airbus’ new long-range, wide-body A350 aircraft. The contract is expected to generate more than $16 billion in revenue over 20 to 25 years.

Honeywell said the contract is the largest systems and equipment package Airbus has awarded to date on this program.

As part of the deal, Honeywell will design and build an auxiliary power unit and other equipment that supply pneumatic and electric power for the aircraft while on the ground or in-flight.

The company will also build systems to manage all of the air used on the aircraft for environmental control, including cabin heating, cooling and pressurization.