General Electric Company (GE) is an American
multinational conglomerate
Conglomerate or conglomeration may refer to:
* Conglomerate (company)
* Conglomerate (geology)
* Conglomerate (mathematics)
In popular culture:
* The Conglomerate (American group), a production crew and musical group founded by Busta Rhymes
** Co ...
founded in 1892, and incorporated in
New York state
New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...
and headquartered in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
. The company operated in sectors including
healthcare
Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ...
,
aviation
Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...
,
power,
renewable energy
Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...
,
digital industry,
additive manufacturing and
venture capital and finance,
but has since divested from several areas, now primarily consisting of the first four segments.
In 2020, GE ranked among the
Fortune 500
The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...
as the 33rd largest firm in the United States by
gross revenue. In 2011, GE ranked among the Fortune 20 as the 14th most profitable company, but later very severely underperformed the market (by about 75%) as its profitability collapsed.
Two employees of GE –
Irving Langmuir
Irving Langmuir (; January 31, 1881 – August 16, 1957) was an American chemist, physicist, and engineer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1932 for his work in surface chemistry.
Langmuir's most famous publication is the 1919 art ...
(1932) and
Ivar Giaever
Ivar Giaever ( no, Giæver, ; born April 5, 1929) is a Norwegian-American engineer and physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 with Leo Esaki and Brian Josephson "for their discoveries regarding tunnelling phenomena in solids". Gi ...
(1973) – have been awarded the
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
.
On November 9, 2021, the company announced it would divide itself into three investment-grade public companies. On July 18, 2022, GE unveiled the brand names of the companies it will create through its planned separation: GE Aerospace, GE HealthCare and GE Vernova. The new companies will be focused on aerospace, healthcare, and energy (renewable energy, power, and digital). The first spin-off of
GE HealthCare
GE HealthCare is a subsidiary of American multinational conglomerate General Electric incorporated in New York and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. As of 2017, it is a manufacturer and distributor of diagnostic imaging agents and radiopharma ...
is planned for the first week of January 2023, to be followed by the spin-off of GE's portfolio of energy businesses which plan to become
GE Vernova in 2024. Following these transactions, GE will be an aviation-focused company, renaming itself as
GE Aerospace
GE Aviation, a subsidiary of General Electric, is headquartered in Evendale, Ohio, outside Cincinnati. GE Aviation is among the top aircraft engine suppliers, and offers engines for the majority of commercial aircraft. GE Aviation is part of the ...
, and will be the legal successor of the original GE.
History
Formation
![General Electric Shops, Schenectady, NY, 1896](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/General_Electric_Shops%2C_Schenectady%2C_NY%2C_1896.jpg)
During 1889,
Thomas Alva Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These invention ...
(1847–1931) had business interests in many electricity-related companies, including Edison Lamp Company, a lamp manufacturer in
East Newark, New Jersey;
Edison Machine Works, a manufacturer of
dynamos and large
electric motor
An electric motor is an Electric machine, electrical machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a Electromagneti ...
s in
Schenectady, New York
Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Y ...
; Bergmann & Company, a manufacturer of electric
lighting fixtures,
sockets, and other electric lighting devices; and ''Edison Electric Light Company'', the
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
-holding company and the financial arm backed by
J. P. Morgan (1837–1913) and the
Vanderbilt family
The Vanderbilt family is an American family who gained prominence during the Gilded Age. Their success began with the shipping and railroad empires of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the family expanded into various other areas of industry and philanthr ...
for Edison's lighting experiments.
In 1889,
Drexel, Morgan & Co., a company founded by J.P. Morgan and
Anthony J. Drexel
Anthony Joseph Drexel Sr. (September 13, 1826 – June 30, 1893) was an American banker who played a major role in the rise of modern global finance after the American Civil War. As the dominant partner of Drexel & Co. of Philadelphia, he founde ...
, financed Edison's research and helped merge those companies under one corporation to form Edison General Electric Company, which was incorporated in New York on April 24, 1889. The new company also acquired
Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Company in the same year.
The consolidation did not involve all of the companies established by Edison; notably, the
Edison Illuminating Company, which would later become
Consolidated Edison
Consolidated Edison, Inc., commonly known as Con Edison (stylized as conEdison) or ConEd, is one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the United States, with approximately $12 billion in annual revenues as of 2017, and over $62 b ...
, was not part of the merger.
In 1880, Gerald Waldo Hart formed the American Electric Company of
New Britain, Connecticut
New Britain is a city in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. It is located approximately southwest of Hartford. According to 2020 Census, the population of the city is 74,135.
Among the southernmost of the communities encompassed wit ...
, which merged a few years later with
Thomson-Houston Electric Company, led by
Charles Coffin. In 1887, Hart left to become superintendent of the Edison Electric Company of
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...
. General Electric was formed through the 1892 merger of Edison General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York, and Thomson-Houston Electric Company of
Lynn, Massachusetts
Lynn is the eighth-largest municipality in Massachusetts and the largest city in Essex County. Situated on the Atlantic Ocean, north of the Boston city line at Suffolk Downs, Lynn is part of Greater Boston's urban inner core. Settled by E ...
, with the support of Drexel, Morgan & Co.
Both plants continue to operate under the GE banner to this day. The company was incorporated in New York, with the Schenectady plant used as headquarters for many years thereafter. Around the same time, General Electric's Canadian counterpart,
Canadian General Electric, was formed.
In 1893, General Electric bought the business of Rudolf Eickemeyer in
Yonkers, New York
Yonkers () is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. Developed along the Hudson River, it is the third most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City and Buffalo. The population of Yonkers was 211,569 as enu ...
, along with all of its patents and designs. One of the employees was
Charles Proteus Steinmetz. Only recently arrived in the United States, Steinmetz was already publishing in the field of magnetic hysteresis and had earned worldwide professional recognition.
Led by Steinmetz, Eickemeyer's firm had developed
transformer
A transformer is a passive component that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to another circuit, or multiple circuits. A varying current in any coil of the transformer produces a varying magnetic flux in the transformer' ...
s for use in the
transmission of electrical power among many other mechanical and electrical devices. Steinmetz quickly became known as the engineering wizard in GE's engineering community.
Public company
In 1896, General Electric was one of the
original 12 companies listed on the newly formed
Dow Jones Industrial Average
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Dow Jones, or simply the Dow (), is a stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States.
The DJIA is one of the oldest and most commonly followed equity inde ...
, where it remained a part of the index for 122 years, though not continuously.
![Carmen Miranda by General Electric (1945)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Carmen_Miranda_by_General_Electric_%281945%29.jpg)
In 1911, General Electric absorbed the National Electric Lamp Association (NELA) into its lighting business. GE established its lighting division headquarters at
Nela Park in
East Cleveland, Ohio. The lighting division has since remained in the same location.
RCA and NBC
Owen D. Young, through GE, founded the
Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1919, after purchasing the
Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America
The Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America (commonly called American Marconi) was incorporated in 1899. It was established as a subsidiary of the British Marconi Company and held the U.S. and Cuban rights to Guglielmo Marconi's radio (then ...
. He aimed to expand international radio communications. GE used RCA as its retail arm for radio sales. In 1926, RCA co-founded the
National Broadcasting Company
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
(NBC), which built two radio broadcasting networks. In 1930, General Electric was charged with antitrust violations and was ordered to divest itself of RCA.
Television
In 1927,
Ernst Alexanderson of GE made the first demonstration of television broadcast reception at his
General Electric Realty Plot home at 1132 Adams Rd, Schenectady, New York.
On January 13, 1928, he made what was said to be the first broadcast to the public in the United States
on GE's
W2XAD
WRGB (channel 6) is a television station licensed to Schenectady, New York, United States, serving the Capital District as an affiliate of CBS. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside CW affiliate WCWN (channel 45, also licensed to Sch ...
: the pictures were picked up on 1.5 square inch (9.7 square centimeter) screens in the homes of four GE executives. The sound was broadcast on GE's
WGY (AM).
Experimental television station W2XAD evolved into the station
WRGB which, along with WGY and WGFM (now
WRVE
WRVE (99.5 MHz) is a commercial FM radio station licensed in Schenectady and serving the Capital District and Upper Hudson Valley New York. It broadcasts a Hot Adult Contemporary radio format and calls itself "99.5 The River," referring to the ...
), was owned and operated by General Electric until 1983. In 1965, the company expanded into cable with the launch of a franchise, which was awarded to a non-exclusive franchise in Schenectady through subsidiary General Electric Cablevision Corporation. On February 15, 1965, General Electric expanded its holdings in order to acquire more television stations to meet the maximum limit of the FCC, and more cable holdings through subsidiaries General Electric Broadcasting Company and General Electric Cablevision Corporation.
The company also owned television stations such as KOA-TV (now
KCNC-TV) in Denver and WSIX-TV (later WNGE-TV, now
WKRN) in Nashville, but like WRGB, General Electric sold off most of its broadcasting holdings, but held on to the Denver television station until in 1986, when General Electric bought out
RCA and made it into an
owned-and-operated station
In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
by
NBC. It even stayed on until 1995 when it was transferred to a joint venture between
CBS and
Group W in a swap deal, alongside
KUTV
KUTV (channel 2) is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside independent station KJZZ-TV (channel 14) and St. George–licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate K ...
in
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...
for longtime
CBS O&O in Philadelphia,
WCAU-TV.
Former General Electric-owned stations
Stations are arranged in alphabetical order by state and
city of license
In American, Canadian, and Mexican broadcasting, a city of license or community of license is the community that a radio station or television station is officially licensed to serve by that country's broadcast regulator.
In North American broa ...
.
Radio stations
Power generation
Led by
Sanford Alexander Moss, GE moved into the new field of aircraft
turbo superchargers. This technology also led to the development of industrial gas turbine engines used for power production. GE introduced the first set of superchargers during World War I, and continued to develop them during the
interwar period
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the World War I, First World War to the beginning of the World War II, Second World War. The in ...
. Superchargers became indispensable in the years immediately prior to World War II. GE supplied 300,000 turbo superchargers for use in fighter and bomber engines. This work led the U.S. Army Air Corps to select GE to develop the nation's first jet engine during the war. This experience, in turn, made GE a natural selection to develop the
Whittle W.1
The Power Jets W.1 (sometimes called the Whittle W.1) was a British turbojet engine designed by Frank Whittle and Power Jets. The W.1 was built under contract by British Thomson-Houston (BTH) in the early 1940s. It is notable for being the fir ...
jet engine
A jet engine is a type of reaction engine discharging a fast-moving jet of heated gas (usually air) that generates thrust by jet propulsion. While this broad definition can include rocket, Pump-jet, water jet, and hybrid propulsion, the term ...
that was demonstrated in the United States in 1941. GE was ranked ninth among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. Although, their early work with Whittle's designs was later handed to
Allison Engine Company. GE
Aviation
Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...
then emerged as one of the world's largest engine manufacturers, bypassing the British company,
Rolls-Royce plc.
Some consumers
boycott
A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict som ...
ed GE light bulbs, refrigerators and other products during the 1980s and 1990s. The purpose of the boycott was to protest against GE's role in
nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
s production.
In 2002, GE acquired the wind power assets of Enron during its bankruptcy proceedings.
Enron Wind
GE Wind Energy is a branch of GE Renewable Energy, a subsidiary of General Electric. The company manufactures and sells wind turbines to the international market. In 2018, GE was the fourth largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world.
History ...
was the only surviving U.S. manufacturer of large wind turbines at the time, and GE increased engineering and supplies for the Wind Division and doubled the annual sales to $1.2 billion in 2003.
[Fairly, Peter]
The Greening of GE
'' IEEE Spectrum'', July 2005. Retrieved: November 6, 2010. It acquired
ScanWind
ScanWind was a Norway, Norwegian manufacturing company that produced wind turbines. In 2009 Scanwind was bought by General Electric, and became the base for GE Wind Energy in Norway. The company has its head office in Trondheim and production fac ...
in 2009.
In 2018, GE Power garnered press attention when a model 7HA gas turbine in Texas was shut down for two months due to the break of a
turbine blade. This model uses similar blade technology to GE's newest and most efficient model, the 9HA. After the break, GE developed new protective coatings and heat treatment methods. Gas turbines represent a significant portion of GE Power's revenue, and also represent a significant portion of the power generation fleet of several utility companies in the United States.
Chubu Electric
, abbreviated as Chuden in Japanese, is a Japanese electric utilities provider for the middle Chūbu region of the Honshu island of Japan. It provides electricity at 60 Hz, though an area of Nagano Prefecture uses 50 Hz. Chubu Electr ...
of Japan and
Électricité de France
Électricité de France S.A. (literally ''Electricity of France''), commonly known as EDF, is a French multinational electric utility company, largely owned by the French state. Headquartered in Paris, with €71.2 billion in revenues in 2 ...
also had units that were impacted. Initially, GE did not realize the turbine blade issue of the 9FB unit would impact the new HA units.
Computing
GE was one of the eight major computer companies of the 1960s along with
IBM,
Burroughs,
NCR,
Control Data Corporation
Control Data Corporation (CDC) was a mainframe and supercomputer firm. CDC was one of the nine major United States computer companies through most of the 1960s; the others were IBM, Burroughs Corporation, DEC, NCR, General Electric, Honeywel ...
,
Honeywell
Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...
,
RCA, and
UNIVAC.
GE had a line of general purpose and special purpose computers, including the
GE 200,
GE 400, and
GE 600 series general purpose computers,
the GE 4010, GE 4020, and GE 4060
real-time
Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...
process control
An industrial process control in continuous production processes is a discipline that uses industrial control systems to achieve a production level of consistency, economy and safety which could not be achieved purely by human manual control. I ...
computers, and the
DATANET-30
The DATANET-30, or DN-30 for short, was a computer manufactured by General Electric designed in 1961-1963 to be used as a communications computer. It was later used as a front-end processor for data communications. It became the first front end co ...
and Datanet 355 message switching computers (DATANET-30 and 355 were also used as front end processors for GE mainframe computers). A Datanet 500 computer was designed, but never sold.
In 1962, GE started developing its
GECOS (later renamed GCOS)
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
, originally for
batch processing
Computerized batch processing is a method of running software programs called jobs in batches automatically. While users are required to submit the jobs, no other interaction by the user is required to process the batch. Batches may automatically ...
, but later extended to
time-sharing
In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.DEC Timesharing (1965), by Peter Clark, The DEC Professional, Volume 1, Number 1
Its emergence a ...
and
transaction processing. Versions of GCOS are still in use today. From 1964 to 1969, GE and
Bell Laboratories
Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984),
then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996)
and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007),
is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...
(which soon dropped out) joined with
MIT to develop the
Multics
Multics ("Multiplexed Information and Computing Service") is an influential early time-sharing operating system based on the concept of a single-level memory.Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System", Communications of t ...
operating system on the
GE 645 mainframe computer. The project took longer than expected and was not a major commercial success, but it demonstrated concepts such as
single-level storage,
dynamic linking,
hierarchical file system, and
ring-oriented security. Active development of Multics continued until 1985.
GE got into computer manufacturing because in the 1950s they were the largest user of computers outside the
United States federal government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 ...
,
aside from being the first business in the world to own a computer. Its major appliance manufacturing plant "
Appliance Park
GE Appliances is an American home appliance manufacturer based in Louisville, Kentucky. It has been majority owned by Chinese multinational home appliances company Haier since 2016. It is one of the largest appliance companies in the United Stat ...
" was the first non-governmental site to host one. However, in 1970, GE sold its computer division to
Honeywell
Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...
, exiting the computer manufacturing industry,
though it retained its timesharing operations for some years afterwards. GE was a major provider of computer time-sharing services, through General Electric Information Services (GEIS, now GXS), offering online computing services that included
GEnie.
In 2000, when United Technologies Corp. planned to buy Honeywell, GE made a counter-offer that was approved by Honeywell. On July 3, 2001, the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
issued a statement that "prohibit the proposed acquisition by General Electric Co. of Honeywell Inc.".
The reasons given were it "would create or strengthen dominant positions on several markets and that the remedies proposed by GE were insufficient to resolve the competition concerns resulting from the proposed acquisition of Honeywell".
On June 27, 2014, GE partnered with collaborative design company Quirky to announce its connected LED bulb called Link. The Link bulb is designed to communicate with smartphones and tablets using a mobile app called
Wink.
Acquisitions and divestments
In December 1985, GE reacquired RCA, primarily for the
NBC television network (also parent of
Telemundo Communications Group
Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is owned by Comcast. It provides content nationally with pr ...
) for $6.28 billion; this merger surpassed the
Capital Cities/ABC merger that happened earlier that year as the largest non-oil merger in world business history. The remainder was sold to various companies, including
Bertelsmann
Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA () is a German private multinational conglomerate corporation based in Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is one of the world's largest media conglomerates, and is also active in the service sector and ...
(Bertelsmann acquired
RCA Records
RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also A ...
) and
Thomson SA, which traces its roots to Thomson-Houston, one of the original components of GE. Also in 1986,
Kidder, Peabody & Co., a U.S.-based securities firm, was sold to GE and following heavy losses was sold to
PaineWebber in 1994.
In 2002,
Francisco Partners and
Norwest Venture Partners acquired a division of GE called GE Information Systems (GEIS). The new company, named
GXS
GXS (OpenText GXS) is a subsidiary of OpenText Corporation headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland, United States. Its GXS Trading Grid managed more than twelve billion transactions in 2011. Since 2004, GXS has invested more than $250 million in ...
, is based in
Gaithersburg, Maryland. GXS is a provider of
business-to-business
Business-to-business (B2B or, in some countries, BtoB) is a situation where one business makes a commercial transaction with another. This typically occurs when:
* A business is sourcing materials for their production process for output (e.g., a ...
e-commerce solutions. GE maintains a minority stake in GXS. Also in 2002,
GE Wind Energy
GE Wind Energy is a branch of GE Renewable Energy, a subsidiary of General Electric. The company manufactures and sells wind turbines to the international market. In 2018, GE was the fourth largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world.
History ...
was formed when GE bought the
wind turbine
A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. ...
manufacturing assets of Enron Wind after the
Enron scandal
The Enron scandal was an accounting scandal involving Enron Corporation, an American energy company based in Houston, Texas. Upon being publicized in October 2001, the company declared bankruptcy and its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen then on ...
s.
[Murphy, Dennis]
GE completes Enron Wind acquisition; Launches GE Wind Energy
''Desert Sky Wind Farm'', May 10, 2002. Retrieved: May 1, 2010.
In 2004, GE bought 80% of Vivendi Universal Entertainment, the parent of
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
from
Vivendi. Vivendi bought 20% of NBC forming the company
NBCUniversal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States.
NBCUniversal is primari ...
. GE then owned 80% of NBCUniversal and Vivendi owned 20%. In 2004, GE completed the
spin-off
Spin-off may refer to:
*Spin-off (media), a media work derived from an existing work
*Corporate spin-off, a type of corporate action that forms a new company or entity
* Government spin-off, civilian goods which are the result of military or gove ...
of most of its
mortgage
A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any pu ...
and
life insurance
Life insurance (or life assurance, especially in the Commonwealth of Nations) is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death ...
assets into an independent company,
Genworth Financial, based in
Richmond, Virginia
(Thus do we reach the stars)
, image_map =
, mapsize = 250 px
, map_caption = Location within Virginia
, pushpin_map = Virginia#USA
, pushpin_label = Richmond
, pushpin_m ...
.
Genpact
Genpact is an American professional services firm legally domiciled in Bermuda with its headquarters in New York City, New York. The company currently employs more than 100,000 people and provides services to clients in over 30 countries worldwid ...
formerly known as GE Capital International Services (GECIS) was established by GE in late 1997 as its captive India-based
BPO. GE sold 60% stake in Genpact to General Atlantic and Oak Hill Capital Partners in 2005 and hived off Genpact into an independent business. GE is still a major client to Genpact today, for services in customer service, finance, information technology, and analytics.
In May 2007, GE acquired
Smiths Aerospace
GE Aviation Systems (formerly Smiths Aerospace) is an American aerospace engineering, aircraft engine
An aircraft engine, often referred to as an aero engine, is the power component of an aircraft propulsion system. Most aircraft engines are ...
for $4.8 billion. Also in 2007, GE Oil & Gas acquired Vetco Gray for $1.9 billion, followed by the acquisition of Hydril Pressure & Control in 2008 for $1.1 billion.
GE Plastics was sold in 2008 to
SABIC (Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corporation). In May 2008, GE announced it was exploring options for divesting the bulk of its consumer and industrial business.
On December 3, 2009, it was announced that NBCUniversal would become a joint venture between GE and cable television operator
Comcast
Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...
. Comcast would hold a controlling interest in the company, while GE would retain a 49% stake and would buy out shares owned by Vivendi.
Vivendi would sell its 20% stake in NBCUniversal to GE for US$5.8 billion. Vivendi would sell 7.66% of NBCUniversal to GE for US$2 billion if the GE/Comcast deal was not completed by September 2010 and then sell the remaining 12.34% stake of NBCUniversal to GE for US$3.8 billion when the deal was completed or to the public via an
IPO
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
if the deal was not completed.
On March 1, 2010, GE announced plans to sell its 20.85% stake in Turkey-based Garanti Bank. In August 2010, GE Healthcare signed a strategic partnership to bring cardiovascular Computed Tomography (CT) technology from start-up Arineta Ltd. of Israel to the hospital market. In October 2010, GE acquired gas engines manufacturer
Dresser Industries in a $3 billion deal and also bought a $1.6 billion portfolio of retail credit cards from
Citigroup
Citigroup Inc. or Citi (Style (visual arts), stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment banking, investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking ...
Inc.
On October 14, 2010, GE announced the acquisition of data migration & SCADA simulation specialists Opal Software.
In December 2010, for the second time that year (after the Dresser acquisition), GE bought the oil sector company
Wellstream
Wellstream Holdings plc is a British company which designs and manufactures flexible Pipeline transport, pipeline systems for the Petroleum industry, oil and gas industry. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the ...
, an oil pipe maker, for 800 million pounds ($1.3 billion).
In March 2011, GE announced that it had completed the acquisition of privately held Lineage Power Holdings from
The Gores Group
The Gores Group is a private equity firm specializing in acquiring and partnering with mature and growing businesses. The company was founded in 1987 by its CEO and chairman, Alec Gores, Alec E. Gores.
Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, wi ...
. In April 2011, GE announced it had completed its purchase of John Wood plc's Well Support Division for $2.8 billion.
In 2011, GE Capital sold its $2 billion Mexican assets to
Santander
Santander may refer to:
Places
* Santander, Spain, a port city and capital of the autonomous community of Cantabria, Spain
* Santander Department, a department of Colombia
* Santander State, former state of Colombia
* Santander de Quilichao, a m ...
for $162 million and exited the business in Mexico. Santander additionally assumed the portfolio debts of GE Capital in the country. Following this, GE Capital focused in its core business and shed its non-core assets.
In June 2012, CEO and President of GE Jeff Immelt said that the company would invest
₹
The Indian rupee sign (₹) is the currency symbol for the Indian rupee (ISO 4217: INR), the official currency of India. Designed by D. Udaya Kumar, it was presented to the public by the Government of India on 15 July 2010, following its select ...
3
billion to accelerate its businesses in
Karnataka
Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...
. In October 2012, GE acquired $7 billion worth of bank deposits from
MetLife Inc.
On March 19, 2013, Comcast bought GE's shares in NBCU for $16.7 billion, ending the company's longtime stake in television and film media.
In April 2013, GE acquired oilfield pump maker
Lufkin Industries
Lufkin Industries is an American manufacturing company founded in 1902 and headquartered in Missouri City, Texas. Lufkin is a provider of rod lift products, automated control and optimization equipment and software for rod lift equipment to the ...
for $2.98 billion.
In April 2014, it was announced that GE was in talks to acquire the global power division of French engineering group
Alstom
Alstom SA is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer operating worldwide in rail transport markets, active in the fields of passenger transportation, signalling, and locomotives, with products including the AGV, TGV, Eurostar, Avelia ...
for a figure of around $13 billion. A rival joint bid was submitted in June 2014 by
Siemens
Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad.
The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...
and
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
is a Japanese multinational engineering, electrical equipment and electronics corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. MHI is one of the core companies of the Mitsubishi Group and its automobile division is the predecessor of Mitsubishi Mo ...
(MHI) with Siemens seeking to acquire Alstom's gas turbine business for €3.9 billion, and MHI proposing a joint venture in steam turbines, plus a €3.1 billion cash investment. In June 2014 a formal offer from GE worth $17 billion was agreed by the Alstom board. Part of the transaction involved the French government taking a 20% stake in Alstom to help secure France's energy and transport interests and French jobs. A rival offer from Siemens-Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was rejected. The acquisition was expected to be completed in 2015.
In October 2014, GE announced it was considering the sale of its
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
banking business
Bank BPH.
Later in 2014, General Electric announced plans to open its global operations center in
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
, Ohio. The Global Operations Center opened in October 2016 as home to GE's multifunctional shared services organization. It supports the company's finance/accounting, human resources, information technology, supply chain, legal and commercial operations, and is one of GE's four multifunctional shared services centers worldwide in
Pudong
Pudong is a district of Shanghai located east of the Huangpu, the river which flows through central Shanghai. The name ''Pudong'' was originally applied to the Huangpu's east bank, directly across from the west bank or Puxi, the historic city ...
, China;
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
, Hungary; and
Monterrey
Monterrey ( , ) is the capital and largest city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León, Mexico, and the third largest city in Mexico behind Guadalajara and Mexico City. Located at the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental, the city is anchor ...
, Mexico.
In April 2015, GE announced its intention to sell off its property portfolio, worth $26.5 billion, to
Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California; operational headquarters in Manhattan; and managerial offices throughout the United States and intern ...
and
The Blackstone Group
Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last three decades, while its real estate bu ...
. It was announced in April 2015 that GE would sell most of its finance unit and return around $90 billion to shareholders as the firm looked to trim down on its holdings and rid itself of its image of a "hybrid" company, working in both banking and manufacturing. In August 2015, GE Capital agreed to sell its Healthcare Financial Services business to
Capital One for US$9 billion. The transaction involved US$8.5 billion of loans made to a wide array of sectors including senior housing, hospitals, medical offices, outpatient services, pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Also in August 2015, GE Capital agreed to sell GE Capital Bank's on-line deposit platform to
Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, H ...
. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but the sale included US$8 billion of on-line deposits and another US$8 billion of brokered certificates of deposit. The sale was part of GE's strategic plan to exit the U.S. banking sector and to free itself from tightening banking regulations. GE also aimed to shed its status as a "systematically important financial institution".
In September 2015, GE Capital agreed to sell its transportation-finance unit to Canada's
Bank of Montreal
The Bank of Montreal (BMO; french: Banque de Montréal, link=no) is a Canadian multinational investment bank and financial services company.
The bank was founded in Montreal, Quebec, in 1817 as Montreal Bank; while its head office remains in ...
. The unit sold had US$8.7 billion (CA$11.5 billion) of assets, 600 employees and 15 offices in the U.S. and Canada. Exact terms of the sale were not disclosed, but the final price would be based on the value of the assets at closing, plus a premium according to the parties.
In October 2015, activist investor
Nelson Peltz
Nelson Peltz (born June 24, 1942) is an American billionaire businessman and investor. He is a founding partner, together with Peter W. May and Edward P. Garden, of Trian Fund Management, an alternative investment management fund based in New Yo ...
's fund Trian bought a $2.5 billion stake in the company.
In January 2016,
Haier
Haier Group Corporation () is a Chinese multinational home appliances and consumer electronics company headquartered in Qingdao, Shandong. It designs, develops, manufactures and sells products including refrigerators, air conditioners, washin ...
acquired GE's appliance division for $5.4 billion. In October 2016,
GE Renewable Energy agreed to pay €1.5 billion to
Doughty Hanson & Co for
LM Wind Power
LM Wind Power (formerly LM Glasfiber) is a Danish multinational wind turbine rotor blades manufacturer and is a subsidiary of General Electric.
LM Wind Power has manufactured more than 175,000 blades since 1975.
History
LM Wind Power was founde ...
during 2017.
At the end of October 2016, it was announced that GE was under negotiations for a deal valued at about $30 billion to combine
GE Oil & Gas with
Baker Hughes
Baker Hughes Company, organized in Delaware and headquartered in Houston, is one of the world's largest oil field services companies. The company provides products and services for oil well drilling, formation evaluation, completion, productio ...
. The transaction would create a publicly traded entity controlled by GE. It was announced that GE Oil & Gas would sell off its water treatment business, GE Water & Process Technologies, as part of its divestment agreement with Baker Hughes. The deal was cleared by the EU in May 2017, and by the
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...
in June 2017. The merger agreement was approved by shareholders at the end of June 2017. On July 3, 2017, the transaction was completed and Baker Hughes became a GE company and was renamed Baker Hughes, a GE Company (BHGE). In November 2018, GE reduced its stake in Baker Hughes to 50.4%. On October 18, 2019, GE reduced its stake to 36.8% and the company was renamed back to Baker Hughes.
In May 2017, GE had signed $15 billion of business deals with
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
. Saudi Arabia is one of GE's largest customers. In September 2017, GE announced the sale of its Industrial Solutions Business to
ABB. The deal closed on June 30, 2018.
Fraud allegations and notice of possible SEC civil action
On August 15, 2019,
Harry Markopolos
Harry M. Markopolos (born October 22, 1956) is an American former securities industry executive and a forensic accounting and financial fraud investigator.
From 1999 to 2008, Markopolos uncovered evidence that suggested that Bernie Madoff's wea ...
, a financial fraud investigator known for his discovery of a Ponzi Scheme run by
Bernard Madoff, accused General Electric of being a "bigger fraud than Enron", alleging $38 billion in accounting fraud. GE denied wrongdoing.
On October 6, 2020, General Electric reported it received a
Wells notice
A Wells notice is a letter that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sends to people or firms at the conclusion of an SEC investigation that states the SEC is planning to bring an enforcement action against them. The notice informs t ...
from the
Securities and Exchange Commission
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...
stating the SEC may take civil action for possible violations of securities laws.
Insufficient reserves for long-term care policies
It is alleged that GE is "hiding" (i.e. under-reserved) $29 billion in losses related to its long-term care business.
According to an August 2019 Fitch Ratings report, there are concerns that GE has not set aside enough money to cover its long-term care liabilities.
In 2018, a lawsuit (the Bezio case) was filed in New York state court on behalf of participants in GE's 401(k) plan and shareowners alleging violations of Section 11 of the
Securities Act of 1933
The Securities Act of 1933, also known as the 1933 Act, the Securities Act, the Truth in Securities Act, the Federal Securities Act, and the '33 Act, was enacted by the United States Congress on May 27, 1933, during the Great Depression and after ...
based on alleged misstatements and omissions related to insurance reserves and performance of GE's business segments.
The Kansas Insurance Department (KID) is requiring General Electric to make $14.5 billion of capital contributions for its insurance contracts during the 7-year period ending in 2024.
GE reported the total liability related to its insurance contracts increased significantly from 2016 to 2019:
:December 31, 2016 $26.1 billion
:December 31, 2017 $38.6 billion
:December 31, 2018 $35.6 billion
:December 31, 2019 $39.6 billion
In 2018, GE announced the issuance of the new standard by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) regarding Financial Services - Insurance (Topic 944) will materially affect its financial statements. Mr. Markopolos estimated there will be a $US 10.5 billion charge when the new accounting standard is adopted in the first quarter of 2021.
Anticipated $8 billion loss upon disposition of Baker Hughes
In 2017, GE acquired a 62.5% interest in Baker Hughes (BHGE) when it combined its oil & gas business with Baker Hughes Incorporated.
In 2018, GE reduced its interest to 50.4%, resulting in the realization of a $2.1 billion loss. GE is planning to divest its remaining interest and has warned that the divestment will result in an additional loss of $8.4 billion (assuming a BHGE share price of $23.57 per share). In response to the fraud allegations, GE noted the amount of the loss would be $7.4 billion if the divestment occurred on July 26, 2019. Mr. Markopolos noted that BHGE is an asset available for sale and therefore
mark-to-market accounting is required.
Markopolos noted GE's
current ratio was only 0.67.
He expressed concerns that GE may file for bankruptcy if there is a recession.
Other
In 2018, the GE Pension Plan reported losses of US$3.3 billion on plan assets.
In 2018, General Electric changed the discount rate used to calculate the actuarial liabilities of its pension plans. The rate was increased from 3.64% to 4.34%.
Consequently, the reported liability for the underfunded pension plans decreased by $7 billion year-over-year, from $34.2 billion in 2017 to $27.2 billion in 2018.
In October 2018, General Electric announced it would "freeze pensions" for about 20,000 salaried U.S. employees. The employees will be moved to a defined-contribution retirement plan in 2021.
On March 30, 2020, General Electric factory workers protested to convert jet engine factories to make ventilators during the
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
crisis.
In June 2020, GE made an agreement to sell its Lighting business to Savant Systems, Inc., an industry leader in the professional smart home space. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
In November 2020, General Electric warned it would be cutting jobs waiting for a recovery due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Financial performance
Dividends
General Electric was a longtime "dividend aristocrat" (a company with a long history of maintaining
dividend
A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it is able to pay a portion of the profit as a dividend to shareholders. Any amount not distributed is taken to be re-in ...
payments to shareholders). Until 2017, the company had never cut dividends for 119 years before a 50% dividend reduction from 24 cents per share to 12 cents per share. In 2018, GE further reduced its quarterly dividend from 12 cents to 1 cent per share.
Stock
As a publicly-traded company on the
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...
, GE stock was one of the 30 components of the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Dow Jones, or simply the Dow (), is a stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States.
The DJIA is one of the oldest and most commonly followed equity inde ...
from 1907 to 2018, the longest continuous presence of any company on the index, and during this time the only company which was part of the original Dow Jones Industrial Index created in 1896.
In August 2000, the company had a market capitalization of $601 billion, and was the most valuable company in the world. On June 26, 2018, the stock was removed from the index and replaced with
Walgreens Boots Alliance
Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. is an American-British-Swiss holding company headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois that owns the retail pharmacy chains Walgreens and Boots, as well as several pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution companies ...
. In the years leading to its removal, GE was the worst performing stock in the Dow, falling more than 55 percent