International conglomerate General Electric has revealed plans to sell its remaining holding in former insurance subsidiary Genworth Financial.

GE says that it is commencing a secondary public offering of approximately 71 million shares of the class A common stock of Genworth. Concurrently with the offering, the insurance outfit also will repurchase 15 million shares of Genworth’s class B common stock directly from GE at the same net price that GE receives in the secondary offering.

The repurchase will close simultaneously with the successful closing of the secondary offering. Once the transactions are completed, GE will have divested all of its remaining holding in Genworth’s common stock.

The move is in line with previous announcements from GE, as recently as last December the company said that it would sell all its remaining Genworth shares by the end of 2006.

Just under a year ago GE reduced its holding in Genworth to 51% with an initial offering. The conglomerate then reduced its share of the insurer to 32% in October before a further sale took place in December.