<h2 class="article-content__headline">GE is slowly dismantling an empire.</h2>
<h2 class="article-content__headline">It was once a sprawling corporation that included NBC, Universal Studios, a giant appliance company and even one of America's biggest banks.</h2>
But now the iconic company founded by Thomas Edison is making itself smaller and smaller. And that shrinking has gained urgency in recent months as GE races to raise cash, chip away at a mountain of debt, and plug a huge hole in its pension fund.
No business is too sacred for the chopping block, especially because GE's stock price has been cut in half over the past two years. Even businesses central to its vaunted history — the 111-year-old railroad division and Edison's light-bulb unit — are up for grabs.
GE CEOs
1981 to 2001
Jack Welch
Welch built GE into a super-conglomerate that enjoyed enormous financial success, but his push into banking dealt the company a nearly fatal blow in 2008.
2001 to 2017
Jeff Immelt
Immelt guided GE through 9/11 and the 2008 financial meltdown, but poorly timed deals on his watch have wrecked the company’s balance sheet and sparked a cash crisis.
2017- present
John Flannery
Flannery, a 30-year veteran of GE, has been forced to raise cash by slashing the dividend and attempting to auction off the iconic rail and light-bulb businesses.
"This is a slow-motion break-up of the company," said Robert McCarthy, an analyst at Stifel.
In the 1980s and 1990s, legendary CEO Jack Welch turned GE into the biggest and most complex conglomerate on the planet. Now the new boss, John Flannery, is trying to fix the company by doing the exact opposite.
"Our objectives are to run the businesses well, make the portfolio stronger, simpler and continue to work as hard as we can to earn back your trust and to deliver for you," Flannery told disappointed shareholders last month.
The sell-off amounts to a rejection of the conglomerate model itself. GE wants to focus its attention on what it believes it does best: making power plants, jet engines and health care products like MRI machines.
_____________________________________________________
Me: The whole story including the 2016 selling of the appliance div. to Haier is at the link. GE treated their employees poorly so maybe the rich investors who made money off that can lose money now. I was told that nobody was promoted from the assembly floor to management of that department; they always brought in someone with no history to run things.
As an aside, I read in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal that in 2016, twice as much money was going to construction of renewable energy production infrastructure like wind and solar than to traditional generating methods using some form of energy like heat or falling water.
<h2 class="article-content__headline">It was once a sprawling corporation that included NBC, Universal Studios, a giant appliance company and even one of America's biggest banks.</h2>
But now the iconic company founded by Thomas Edison is making itself smaller and smaller. And that shrinking has gained urgency in recent months as GE races to raise cash, chip away at a mountain of debt, and plug a huge hole in its pension fund.
No business is too sacred for the chopping block, especially because GE's stock price has been cut in half over the past two years. Even businesses central to its vaunted history — the 111-year-old railroad division and Edison's light-bulb unit — are up for grabs.
GE CEOs
1981 to 2001
Jack Welch
Welch built GE into a super-conglomerate that enjoyed enormous financial success, but his push into banking dealt the company a nearly fatal blow in 2008.
2001 to 2017
Jeff Immelt
Immelt guided GE through 9/11 and the 2008 financial meltdown, but poorly timed deals on his watch have wrecked the company’s balance sheet and sparked a cash crisis.
2017- present
John Flannery
Flannery, a 30-year veteran of GE, has been forced to raise cash by slashing the dividend and attempting to auction off the iconic rail and light-bulb businesses.
"This is a slow-motion break-up of the company," said Robert McCarthy, an analyst at Stifel.
In the 1980s and 1990s, legendary CEO Jack Welch turned GE into the biggest and most complex conglomerate on the planet. Now the new boss, John Flannery, is trying to fix the company by doing the exact opposite.
"Our objectives are to run the businesses well, make the portfolio stronger, simpler and continue to work as hard as we can to earn back your trust and to deliver for you," Flannery told disappointed shareholders last month.
The sell-off amounts to a rejection of the conglomerate model itself. GE wants to focus its attention on what it believes it does best: making power plants, jet engines and health care products like MRI machines.
_____________________________________________________
Me: The whole story including the 2016 selling of the appliance div. to Haier is at the link. GE treated their employees poorly so maybe the rich investors who made money off that can lose money now. I was told that nobody was promoted from the assembly floor to management of that department; they always brought in someone with no history to run things.
As an aside, I read in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal that in 2016, twice as much money was going to construction of renewable energy production infrastructure like wind and solar than to traditional generating methods using some form of energy like heat or falling water.
Inside the dismantling of GE - CNNMoney
General Electric is slowly taking apart an empire that once included NBC, Universal Studios, an appliance company and one of America's biggest banks.
money.cnn.com
