U.S. industrial giant, General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE), is selling off most of its financial services business in a bid to streamline the company.

In a major restructuring announced Friday, the firm said it will sell most of the assets of GE Capital over the next 24 months. It plans to retain the financing units that relate directly to its core industrial businesses, GE Capital Aviation Services, Energy Financial Services and Healthcare Equipment Finance. The assets it intends to sell includes commercial lending and leasing, and all of its consumer platforms, including all U.S. and international banking assets.

“The successful IPO of GE’s retail finance business, Synchrony Financial, and other recent business exits have demonstrated that our financial services assets can be more valuable to others,” said GE Capital chairman and CEO, Keith Sherin. “GE Capital’s businesses are excellent, and this is a great market for selling financial assets. Our people are world-class. We are confident these businesses will thrive elsewhere.”

GE also announced a deal to sell the bulk of the assets of GE Capital Real Estate to funds managed by Blackstone. Wells Fargo will also acquire a portion of those assets at closing, including loans in Canada, the U.S. and UK. GE reports that it also has letters of intent with other buyers to sell another $4 billion (U.S. dollars) of commercial real estate assets. In total, these transactions are valued at approximately US$26.5 billion.

The company says that these transactions may allow it to return more than $90 billion to investors in dividends and buybacks through 2018. The exits of the GE Capital businesses should release approximately US$35 billion in dividends, which are expected to be allocated to buybacks. The company’s board also authorized a new US$50 billion stock buyback.

GE says that it has discussed its plans with its regulators and the U.S. Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC). And, that it is working closely with regulators to get GE Capital’s designation as a systemically important financial institution (SIFI) removed.

The company expects to record approximately US$16 billion of after-tax charges in the first quarter of 2015 in connection with the plan, including taxes on repatriated earnings, asset impairments due to shortened hold periods, and charges on businesses held for sale, including goodwill allocation.

Following the announcement, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the senior unsecured debt rating for GE. “The downgrades reflect our perception of a growing level of financial risk tolerance, in favor of equity holders and at the expense of creditors,” said Russell Solomon, senior vice president and Moody’s lead analyst for GE. Indeed, Moody’s says that the GE Capital asset sales will largely benefit equity investors; and it sees “a noteworthy shift by GE to more aggressive financial policies”.

“We view the updated plan to allocate a total of about US$90 billion to shareholder distributions over the next three years as a decisive indication that the company’s financial policies have shifted to a more aggressive posture, which we expect to continue,” added Solomon.

Moody’s also affirmed its ratings on GE Capital, noting that the plan “will result in a more concentrated portfolio of assets with greater average asset risk, but with lower refinancing risk and a far smaller asset footprint.”

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services affirmed its ratings on GE and GE Capital, noting that it could also lower the rating on GE if it comes to believe the company’s financial policy is becoming more aggressive. “An indication of this would be if GE does not curtail share repurchases or if it engages in additional large acquisitions through 2016,” it says.