GE’s Credit Downgraded by Standard & Poors

General Electric had its credit rating downgraded by ratings agency Standard & Poor’s to AA+ from AAA, the Associated Press reported earlier this morning.

S&P’s reasoning on the downgrade is that GE’s finance arm, GE Capital, faces greater losses on real estate loans, and said that if GE Capital were a separate company, it would receive just an A rating.

This bad news comes on the heels of  last week’s announcement that GE would be cutting its dividend by two thirds, a move that would save the company about $9 billion a year.