GE Down to Three Choices: Report

With the clock winding down to General Electric’s target date of deciding whether or not to keep its headquarters in Fairfield, the choice is reportedly down to three finalists.

The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports that Georgia is out of the running and says GE apparently will stay in the Northeast —-either in Fairfield, the Greater New York City area or Boston.

Georgia officials had been vocal about their efforts to lure GE out of Fairfield. Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed recently told Bloomberg News reporters that they will be “offering whatever is reasonable to get it done if we have the opportunity.”

The Hartford Courant reported on Monday that a GE spokesman said the company had nothing new to report about its search process and declined to reveal which states and cities are finalists, or to name which states have been ruled out.

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Ridgefield Republican Rep. John Frey, who the Courant reports has deep personal ties to GE, told the paper that he thought the chances were “slim” that GE would remain in Connecticut.

Frey also told the Courant that Rhode Island is strongly in the running.

General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt plans to decide where the company will call home by the end of the year.

GE has been weighing its options about relocating from its Fairfield headquarters ever since Immelt expressed frustration over Connecticut’s new business tax increases in June.

Immelt told CNBC in an interview in September that the company is taking the decision very seriously.

“We’ve been there for 40 years, so we would never do anything like this carelessly or casually,’’ Immelt said. “It’s the kind of thing you only think about every 40 years. You want to make sure you get it right.’’

Read more about Connecticut’s fight for GE at the Hartford Courant here.