GE & Hitachi Nuclear Units to Merge

DealBook:

General Electric and Hitachi will merge their nuclear power businesses, which build new reactors and provide services to owners of old ones, the companies said Monday. The announcement of the deal by the two companies today is another sign of global retrenchment in the industry.

G.E. competes with Westinghouse Electric (now owned by Toshiba) and with Areva, a French-German consortium, to sell reactors in the United States, where nuclear power is getting new attention again because of high oil prices and heightened concerns about dependence on energy imports.