Yeah, they're actually giving GE about 3 billions in cash, and the rest in stock equivalence for most of that, which amounts to holding a half interest in Wabtec. But, no, it's not really a merger, it's more of a "spin-off" of a GE "division" to Westinghouse's old rail unit.

Wabtec's stock went up nicely on the news, and GE is holding that "stock", which it may have well have to "sell" those shares, to generate more cash, in order to pay down more of the debt owed from GE's re-insurance and subprime fiascos. It appears that there should be no doubt that Wabtec will be running the show, and not GE, despite that large stake.

It appears to many of these analyst's that GE's current management has inherited such a mess from over a decade of mismanagement, that it is barely treading water, and will continue trying to sell of assets like this (and this "stock" they received in Wabtec), in order to try to bring their huge debt load, so their balance sheet is finally line with the now completely deflated stock price.