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General Electric Co. GE says CEO Jeffrey Immelt will retire and be succeeded by John Flannery in August 2017. Flannery is head of the healthcare business at GE.

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Jeffrey Immelt of GE makes a critical point in this op-ed article- that the concept of the US transitioning from a technology-based, export-oriented economic powerhouse to a services-led, consumption based economy was a bad idea because it would lead to a loss of jobs, prosperity and prestige. Immelt calls it "fundamentally wrong." In this piece he makes the point repeatedly and takes his role as head of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness seriously, saying that there is nothing inevitable about the decline of manufacturing in America, that it can and must be reversed. For over two decades business leaders have taken a complacent attitude about the effects of a continued decline of manufacturing in America and the loss of jobs in the US, even as they built plants and expanded overseas. Now for the first time Immelt articulates a new policy for government and business leaders. He says businesses should invest more in advanced products and technologies that create jobs in the US. In doing this he joins Intel's Andy Grove and other business leaders who expressed a growing frustration with the pessimism that this loss of jobs and competitiveness is creating among young people in the US, and the cloud it is creating about America's future. Immelt adds that it is imperative to care about what happens at home in the US, and the growing pessimism that lack of jobs growth in the US creates should not be accepted....

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GE's share price falls below $10. It has dropped 77% in 1 year from the 52 week high of $38.52 a share. Last time it hit this level was April 17, 1995. And its GE Capital unit faces problems. For years it generated half of GE's profits, now it had to sell its commercial paper to the government when markets dried up last fall. It has had to use a government bond guarantee program for bond issuance in recent months, even though it was at one time one of the largest corporate bond issuers. It has been unable to sell its $30 billion private label credit card operations and it appliances and light bulb units, as there are no buyers. As the stock drops GE has to consider cutting the dividend of $1.24 per share, to keep more cash to navigate this crisis. GE's Immelt continues to have his managers focus on the operations, and its business reviews that were conducted weekly are now conducted daily, and the monthly reviews are conducted weekly. But being proactive hasn't helped in this environment. ....

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GE's environmental campaign. How CEO Immelt sees and how he calls it from the Hudson River cleanup from GE's past to company products, GE emissions count, and the ecoimagination project, and what has shaped his own convictions in this matter of emissions. The progress GE is making in this direction under Immelts leadership. For Immelt personally without getting involved in ideological debate working to live in a world that will limit CO2 emissions, as a political necessity, and to do this shaping that very world with GE's own initiative rather than sit passively by the sidelines, that is what makes intuitive sense.

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A look at the views expressed in the blogs following the appointment of Jeffrey Immelt to head the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness shows considerable skepticism. Questions were raised about the deal signed by GE with China that involves sharing jet technology with China, shutting US plants to move work to China, the need for $16 billion in bailout funds for its finance unit, in one blog. Another blog points to the negligible amount paid by GE in corporate income taxes, paying no taxes in 2009 and paying 3.6% in 2010. And another blog pointed to the lack of a position by Immelt on the trade distortions created by America's trading partners, such as China's currency and other policies. One blog refers to the Obama election campaign's need to raise something near the record $700 million raised for the 2008 campaign, and the need to get business lined up for that effort.

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This story in the NYT showing America's GE building a wind turbine three times as large as the Statue of Liberty in New York harbour, comes after a decade of bad news from GE, beginning with its role in the mortgage financial crisis when its stock dropped to new lows. Bad bets on conventional power generation in its power division are leading to the change at GE where it is now investing in renewable energy. Under CEO Immelt GE did not anticipate the surge in growth of renewable energy powered by government subsidies. Now GE is pursuing an aggressive strategy by building larger wind turbines than its competitors Vestas in Denmark and Senvion in Germany. A 12 megawatt turbine is planned by GE called Haliade-X, to be built at a cost of $400 million for demonstration in 2019, shipping units in 2021. Competitors are looking at building a 10 megawatt wind turbine. Vestas SA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries have a 9.5 megawatt wind turbine in operation as prototype in Denmark. The bit of good news comes with the backdrop of big changes at GE as its power division falters badly. GE under Immelt badly misjudged the market for gas and coal turbines, building inventory and resorting to aggressive pricing, not anticipating the push evident in Germany and in China towards renewable energy. The shift to renewable energy reduced demand for conventional power in Germany and the U.S. In Germany. Electric companies in conventional power generation are struggling. At GE orders declined by 25% and profits by 50% in the 4th quarter over the prior year. 12,000 job cuts are planned in the power division, 18% of its workforce. Older board members at GE are expected to leave, and GE under new CEO/Chairman John Flannery plans to shed $20 billion in assets in a major restructuring and shift to renewables.   Larger wind turbines of 10 megawatts or larger are the next stage in wind energy as the Netherlands and Germany move to build wind farms free of subsidies. The economics of larger wind turbines are critical as less geographic acreage is needed with larger turbines. ...

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General Electric, GE, experienced a steep decline in the last decade. The worst news came in 2018 with the loss of half its share price and market value. One story tells about an employee who was forced out of retirement back to work seeing the loss of value in GE shares in 2018. Rarely has a company of this size seen a fall in stock price this steep, for a stock that was once seen as safe for widows. About 60% of GE business comes from jet engines, electric power generators and wind turbines. GE now plans to sell its health care business and other business that do not relate to core infrastructure in energy, aerospace, and other markets. Under Jack Welch a faulty model of adding diverse businesses that had nothing to do with its core business and expertise in infrastructure were added. A home mortgage lending business was added and GE Capital expanded. NBC Universal was added with little justification in a period when CEO's acted without much consultation. The home mortgage lending unit collapsed with large losses during the 2008 financial crisis and GE's share price dropped drastically to $6.00. Under Welch's successor Mr. Immelt the GE Capital unit was shrunk in size, but losses continued to mount. An oil field service unit was added which also sustained losses.  Immelt's successor Flannery faced a loss of $15 billion from the financial lending unit. Sale of some businesses was not sufficient to meet the loss. Flannery is now taking GE out of all the businesses which were not core business. The NBC Universal television business was sold to Comcast in 2013. GE Healthcare is next. This closes a bad chapter in GE's story under Welch and Immelt. GE's dividend was cut for the second time since the Great Depression. The story of GE is also the story of American business during the last two decades, with icons such as GM, Ford and GE suffering decline, businesses that operated like little fiefdoms of old nobility in Europe, with CEO's operating in a CEO centric culture, not tolerating contrary opinion for informed debate on issues facing the business. Alfred Sloan founder of Genral Motors called constructive debate central to good management. Later Intel CEO Andy Grove coined the phrase constructive confrontation as a way of constructive debate, and the CEO was shown as the first of equals. The CEO centric management ignored these warnings and admonitions in running their fiefdoms.   ...

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GE will continue to do well in a tumultous economy in 2008 and beyond.

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Experts say this is the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and it has gradually accelerated since October 2007 from a gradually unfolding housing crisis into a full blown credit markets crisis with the lack of transparency in mortgage securitization and the loss of confidence in the credit markets as mortgage securities values collapsed. The worst is still ahead as home prices have only fallen to a small extent so far and experts expect another 20% drop in prices this year and 2009. In the face of this crisis Immelt can be faulted for not using caution in his promises to the analyst community but to be so unforgiving for GE shares to fall 13% in one day and calls for breaking up the company or frustration at GE's inability to overcome what were clearly extremely unusual financial and real estate market conditions that may be a first in 40 years, is clearly overdone. Jack Welch who said he would be shocked beyond belief and shoot Immelt if he doesn't make what he promises now is also expressing some of that frustration, but beyond this is the inability to grasp the true extent of the situation in the markets that Welch never experienced first hand as he demanded and got his managers to deliver on results quarter after quarter or be fired for credibility problems ,because Welch's batting averages reflected a stretch of years where there were no crises of the magnitude of what Immelt is facing today. Upon further reflection Welch still stands by Immelt saying that this business about breaking up GE and Immelt's in trouble is crazy. And Immelt is building GE around the growth engines of the next big success stories in the growth engines of the future in Asia and the Middle East and emerging market countries of infrastructure, energy, aviation, health and environment, which would also be supported by the smaller but still significant growth of industrialized countries. And these things take time to put together a collection of winning businesses to be well positioned for future growth. Can GE accelerate sales or are there any shortcuts? Immelt doe not think so. Can he change things in a "severe and protracted" economic downturn as the Fed put it last month? Its beyond even large companies like GE....

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This Journal editorial talks about the role GE Capital has played in generating profits for GE under CEO Welch, and then leading to a need for government money to help GE Capital survive. It describes as hollow the claims GE makes about leading a drive for US renewal through jobs growth and innovation when earnings were driven by a finance division for many years during the financial boom in mortgages. Capital was then massively misallocated from productive uses to speculative investments. The claims about investment in jobs in the US rings hollow says the Journal, because GE continues to cut jobs in the US- employment in the US for GE fell by 34,000 between 2000 and 2009. By inviting "government to be a industrial policy champion, a financier and a key partner," as stated in a 2008 letter to shareholders, GE CEO Immelt, says the Journal, is simply inviting the same kind of capital misallocation that led to the housing bubble.

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Growing the banking business right into the 2008 financial crisis - with the effects of the crisis playing out over the next decade- is one decision GE CEO Immelt has described as one he didn't do right. Moves in 2014 and 2015 were designed to focus GE on areas of its historic strengths. GE plans to sell $26.5 billion of office buildings and commercial real estate debt to Blackstone Group and Wells Fargo. This is after moves to spin off the private label credit cards and retail finance business as a separate company called Synchrony Financial. Most of GE Capital's $500 billion business will be sold off or spun off in 2015-2016, except for aircraft leasing and financing for energy and health care, which are related businesses. GE shares were up to $28.38, up 10%, in trading on April 9, 2015. GE Capital's shares were down to $6 in the 2008 financial crisis requiring an injection of government funds. Immelt's 13 years as CEO would end on a positive note with this move, as the role of GE Capital in contributing to the crisis is considered a blemish on his record....

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Mid 2007 look at GE and conversation with its CEO Immelt.