New York - The hard-hit bank mammoth Citigroup is selling a large portion of its North American leasing subsidiary to the conglomerate General Electric.

The move was part of plans by Citigroup's new head Vikram Pandit, who has signalled he would restructure the ailing concern.

General Electric Co Thursday agreed to buy 13.4 billion dollars in assets, which represent most of CitiCapital. Although terms of the deal were not released, GE will acquire Citigroup Inc's North American commercial lending and leasing unit - encompassing 1,400 employees and 160,000 customers in North America.

The acquisition dovetails with GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt's plans to bulk up commercial finance assets less than a week after the company reported first-quarter profit that missed analysts' estimates because of shortfalls in other parts of its finance business, Bloomberg financial news agency reported. (dpa)