Overview of Financial Position
Major changes in our financial position resulted from the following:
- During 2007, we separately reported the assets and liabilities of Plastics, Lake and WMC as discontinued operations for all periods presented. As of December 31, 2007, we have completed the sales of Plastics and WMC, reducing assets and liabilities of discontinued operations by $13.2 billion and $2.1 billion, respectively.
- During 2007, we completed the acquisitions of Smiths Aerospace Group Ltd.; Vetco Gray; Oxygen Media Corp.; Sondex PLC; Sparrowhawk Holdings Ltd.; Phoenix; Dynamic Imaging, LLC; Sanyo Electric Credit Co., Ltd.; DISKO and ASL, the leasing businesses of KG Allgemeine Leasing GmbH & Co.; Trustreet Properties, Inc.; Dundee REIT; Crow Holdings; and a controlling interest in Regency Energy Partners LP.
- Our principal pension plans had a surplus of $16.8 billion at December 31, 2007, compared with $11.5 billion at the end of 2006, reflecting strong asset returns and an increase in the discount rate.
- The U.S. dollar was weaker at December 31, 2007, than it was at December 31, 2006, increasing the translated levels of our non-U.S. dollar assets and liabilities. Overall, on average, the U.S. dollar in 2007 was weaker than during the comparable 2006 period, resulting in increasing the translated levels of our operations as noted in the preceding Operations section.