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The Economist (August 1)

2020/ 08/ 03 by jd in Global News

“The downfall of America’s industrial giant is a cautionary tale for all big firms.” GE’s “near-collapse in 2018 beggared belief. It still limps on, but the suspects behind a destruction of $500bn in value over little more than 20 years are so many that the mystery feels like a whodunnit.”

 

Los Angeles Times (August 16)

2017/ 08/ 18 by jd in Global News

“America’s top business executives may have bristled over President Trump’s ban on refugees, his withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and his decision to bar transgender Americans from the military.” Still, “it wasn’t until the embattled president all but defended white supremacists in the aftermath of the deadly clashes over the weekend in Charlottesville, Va., that the country’s corporate elite decided they had had enough.”And, “by Wednesday, so many executives had resigned from Trump’s economic advisory and manufacturing councils, including the heads of General Electric Co., Intel Corp. and Campbell Soup Co., that the president announced on Twitter that he was disbanding the panels.”

 

The Economist (June 17)

2017/ 06/ 18 by jd in Global News

Replacing Jeff Immelt at GE’s helm, new CEO John Flannery will need “to deal with GE’s soggy financial performance. Trian, an activist hedge fund, owns a stake in GE and, behind the scenes, has probably been agitating for change. Unless the numbers improve soon, pressure may mount for GE to break itself up. That would be a bad idea: what it now needs is less re-engineering and more consistent execution. At least Mr Flannery, unlike Mr Immelt, takes the helm when expectations are low.”

 

The Economist (January 18, 2014)

2014/ 01/ 19 by jd in Global News

“With a string of deals the internet giant has positioned itself to become a big inventor, and reinventor, of hardware.” Google is becoming “the next GE,” with recent acquisitions spanning Nest Labs, Motorola Mobility and Boston Dynamics even as Google’s in-house engineers are “busy working on driverless cars and wearable gadgets such as Google Glass.”

 

USA Today (October 15)

2012/ 10/ 16 by jd in Global News

When the U.S. unemployment rate fell from 8.1% to 7.8%, some alleged conspiracy. Former GE CEO Jack Welch suggested the numbers had been manipulated to improve Obama’s reelection odds. These suggestions are frankly “a little nuts.” Eventually Welch “admitted he had no evidence that anyone was manipulating the jobs numbers, or that the respected numbers crunchers at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other agencies were engaged in a plot that would be cause for terminating their professional careers.” Calculating the unemployment rate is not an exact science. The initial numbers often go up and down more than expected, but they get subsequently revised twice. Welch’s suggestion is among the “dumbest and most irresponsible things said by people who ought to know better.”

 

Reuters (August 3)

2011/ 08/ 05 by jd in Global News

Approximately 35% of companies in the S&P500 have used the same audit firm for 25 years or more. In fact, “Goldman Sachs has stuck with the same auditing firm since 1926, Coca Cola since 1921, General Electric since 1909 and Procter & Gamble since 1890.” Reformers argue that rotation should be required to increase scrutiny, but many oppose such a requirement.

 

The Independent (July 3)

2010/ 07/ 05 by jd in Global News

Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO of GE, shared some interesting thoughts about China. “I am not sure that in the end they want any of us to win or any of us to be successful.” The words were interesting because Immelt, once one of China’s biggest cheerleaders, now appears worried over China’s changing regulatory environment. Immelt made the remarks in Italy. The Independent’s take was distinctly British: Immelt “views General Electric as a national champion for the US, rather than as the citizen of the world.”

 

[archive]