Who the hell knows any longer? I hope the fact that the dividend was retained at about 4-5% yield means that the company isn't in that dire of straits.
I don't really think so, but (as the story hints) it really depends on the state of GE Credit Corp. If that unit's gotten entangled in the CDOs, etc. that swamped Wall Street, then maybe so. The rest of GE should be in reasonably good shape; if it does have to seek a bailout, that should come with a severance of GECC from the rest of the company, and only GECC should get the money.
Don't forget G.E.'s Ecomagination initiative. Expecting windmills to solve our energy needs may be quixotic, but expecting an environmental-friendly agenda to curry favor with a liberal administration may not be.
GE made money last quarter and will probably make money in the current year.
The operative word is "probably". Today nothing is certain. Most GE divisions should get boosts from stimulus spending.
But the outlook for their large banking and financing activities cannot be known. All over the world governments are taking control of banking and finances.
They carry a lot of debt, but unlike some of the other basket cases walking around (GM and so on), GE is a pretty solid and well-run business - highly profitable even last year. I really doubt they'll need government help, even if they end up having to swallow some huge losses from the financial arm.
My thesis that the stimulus has introduced destablizing uncertainty looks more and more true.
As of this date, it is not clear whether a company can be more profitable by making something people want to buy or trying to squeeze either bailout or stimulus money from the government. Until it becomes clear that the former and not the latter is the best (only!) option, the economy will not recover.
Russell from GE -- GE earned more than $18 billion in 2008. We are not taking any government funding (TARP). We have approximately $50 billion in cash on hand. We have a strong backlog of orders and continue to win new orders. GE has been around 130 years because we make the tough decisions when we need to - this is another example of the Company acting prudently and making the Company safe and secure. Thank you
1. This seems overly cynical. It looks like GE is doing the sort of things that any reasonably managed company would do to conserve cash in a time of economic uncertainty. They should be commended, not suspected.
2. Since when did companies that get bailouts need to behave responsibly in order to qualify? Hopping into hybrids and driving to DC is more indicative of bailout-hunger than cost-cutting.
I first read this as GE's CEO waving his $12 million bonus, i.e. waving it in our face as though to taunt us, to goad us, to enrage the public so much that the government would feel obliged to step in and take the company away from its shareholders.
Nah - no bailout. Although GE does have a significant financial arm (might still be called GE Capital), they've not been critically hammered by the incompetence that led to the "too big to fail" banks.
What GE is doing is simple PR. CEO Immelt is no dummy, and saw the brouhaha created by other CEOs taking huge bonuses when their profits and stock price crashed. By announcing this, he tells the world "see, we are not like that!"
I hope for the sake of my GE stock (all of 30 shares or so!) that he's able to get the stock back up where it was (via a good business plan, not cooking books and simple PR).
Jack Welch was a fraud. A lot of GE's trouble can be laid at his feat. He stretched his reported numbers to make it appear that they were less volatile than they were. It makes me vomit in my mouth a little every time I see Neil Cavuto genuflect to that crooked old geezer.
GE is competing against phony historical performance metrics. I still don't have any sympathy for them as they used their media wing to beat the war drums and then cashed in as military contractors. Actually, it's fun watching them burn.
I'm not immune to a certain amount of evil Vulcan schadenfreude. War profiteers are worse than drug lords, in my book.
I remember Immelt(down) saying just a few months ago that the dividend was safe for 2009. Really, just another CEO Lie. You cannot believe anything that comes out of their mouths
Who the hell knows any longer? I hope the fact that the dividend was retained at about 4-5% yield means that the company isn't in that dire of straits.
Sure, why not? GE is too big to fail.
I don't really think so, but (as the story hints) it really depends on the state of GE Credit Corp. If that unit's gotten entangled in the CDOs, etc. that swamped Wall Street, then maybe so. The rest of GE should be in reasonably good shape; if it does have to seek a bailout, that should come with a severance of GECC from the rest of the company, and only GECC should get the money.
Jack Donaghy will fix it.
Don't forget G.E.'s Ecomagination initiative. Expecting windmills to solve our energy needs may be quixotic, but expecting an environmental-friendly agenda to curry favor with a liberal administration may not be.
There is no disaster yet. They are reducing risk.
GE made money last quarter and will probably make money in the current year.
The operative word is "probably". Today nothing is certain. Most GE divisions should get boosts from stimulus spending.
But the outlook for their large banking and financing activities cannot be known. All over the world governments are taking control of banking and finances.
They carry a lot of debt, but unlike some of the other basket cases walking around (GM and so on), GE is a pretty solid and well-run business - highly profitable even last year. I really doubt they'll need government help, even if they end up having to swallow some huge losses from the financial arm.
If they get government money, can taxpayers demand that Olbermann's $4mm a year paycheck gets cut to $500,000?
My thesis that the stimulus has introduced destablizing uncertainty looks more and more true.
As of this date, it is not clear whether a company can be more profitable by making something people want to buy or trying to squeeze either bailout or stimulus money from the government. Until it becomes clear that the former and not the latter is the best (only!) option, the economy will not recover.
No. They did this to protect the AAA credit rating. The div cut saves them $9B/year in capital.
Better phrasing: "Doesn't it sound like they're about to bring something good to life?"
Russell from GE -- GE earned more than $18 billion in 2008. We are not taking any government funding (TARP). We have approximately $50 billion in cash on hand. We have a strong backlog of orders and continue to win new orders. GE has been around 130 years because we make the tough decisions when we need to - this is another example of the Company acting prudently and making the Company safe and secure. Thank you
Two points:
1. This seems overly cynical. It looks like GE is doing the sort of things that any reasonably managed company would do to conserve cash in a time of economic uncertainty. They should be commended, not suspected.
2. Since when did companies that get bailouts need to behave responsibly in order to qualify? Hopping into hybrids and driving to DC is more indicative of bailout-hunger than cost-cutting.
I first read this as GE's CEO waving his $12 million bonus, i.e. waving it in our face as though to taunt us, to goad us, to enrage the public so much that the government would feel obliged to step in and take the company away from its shareholders.
But I was wrong. Oh well.
Nah - no bailout. Although GE does have a significant financial arm (might still be called GE Capital), they've not been critically hammered by the incompetence that led to the "too big to fail" banks.
What GE is doing is simple PR. CEO Immelt is no dummy, and saw the brouhaha created by other CEOs taking huge bonuses when their profits and stock price crashed. By announcing this, he tells the world "see, we are not like that!"
I hope for the sake of my GE stock (all of 30 shares or so!) that he's able to get the stock back up where it was (via a good business plan, not cooking books and simple PR).
Jack Welch was a fraud. A lot of GE's trouble can be laid at his feat. He stretched his reported numbers to make it appear that they were less volatile than they were. It makes me vomit in my mouth a little every time I see Neil Cavuto genuflect to that crooked old geezer.
GE is competing against phony historical performance metrics. I still don't have any sympathy for them as they used their media wing to beat the war drums and then cashed in as military contractors. Actually, it's fun watching them burn.
I'm not immune to a certain amount of evil Vulcan schadenfreude. War profiteers are worse than drug lords, in my book.
I remember Immelt(down) saying just a few months ago that the dividend was safe for 2009. Really, just another CEO Lie. You cannot believe anything that comes out of their mouths