GE has already jettisoned its gigantic real estate portfolio, its dishwasher and appliance business, and legendary media properties NBC and Universal Studios. More recently, it unloaded its water business and a unit that makes electrical equipment for utilities. Even the light bulb division is up for sale…
…GE recently revealed plans to get rid of businesses worth at least $20 billion in the next year or two. One unit that could be on the chopping block is its struggling railroad business, which GE has owned for more than a century.…
…Unlike companies that make simple products, GE’s jet engines, locomotives and power plant systems require expensive engineering, factories, equipment and manpower to create…Another business getting hit hard is the railroad unit. GE is planning to get out of the railroad business through a potential sale or spinoff, the Wall Street Journal reported last week. (All emphasis mine)
ge has been making light bulbs in Cleveland since I think since the early 50’s. Just announced thier biggest drive Thur outdoor Christmas lighting and animations display in years. It’s the first drive Thur in many years, since the roadways and bridges in thier Cleveland campus ( neala park ) are small. They have included many of thier classic Xmas animation scenes.
I can remember many drive by with our family looking at the many tremdous decorations in Cleveland area. Might be worth a trip this year if this going to be thier swan song.
get has been making light bulbs in Cleveland since I think the early 50’s. Just announced thier biggest drive Thur outdoor Christmas lighting and animations. It’s the first drive Thur in many years, since the roadways and bridges in thier Cleveland campus are small. They have included many of thier classic Xmas animation scenes.
Might be worth a trip this year if this going to be thier swan song.
Some one help me out please. So after the 20B fire sale, what will GE make? Or is the plan to become a holding company with a big wad of cash and nothing to make? I don’t understand.
Happily dumped their stock in 2003, you could start to see the handwriting on the wall back then because even though they were flying high financially they had no real plan or strategy for the future. It was like they were letting out a sigh of relief that they had finally grown so big they no longer needed to worry about planning a future strategy. Sadly, it does not work that way in a global economy.
They can use the cash from the sales to buy other assets and reposition the company onto a higher growth path with the newer companies it buys.
There was a LOT of potential in the assets that GE held though. It just would not invest. See how IRBT stock is doing well? That could have been the GE appliance division had they invested in automated or robotic technology…instead of just repackaging a 40 year old appliance in a new skin.
With their locomotive division they could invest money to make the engines burn even more efficiently saving fuel and emissions, they could make the cabs more safe, they could standardize on parts, etc. The problem is they only invest in spurts then there is a long drought of investment. They need a long term business strategy, IMO.
With only two major locomotive manufacturers left, I’m surprised one of them would want to get out of that business. After being number 2 for decades, they clawed their way to number 1 a couple of decades ago… their customer base is doing very well to boot. Sounds to me like a good business to hang on to.
To what BaltACD said “…When you get to the top of your field, isn’t the next step to retire?..” It might also seem that complacency is overtaking the Corporate Hierarchy? Are they wanting to rest on their laurels? " The phrase in use these days by management " want to get back to their ‘core’…?" Or might it just be a case of take the money and run?
(Note: to Norm48327) For quite a while GE has operated a ‘base’ at Winfied, Ks. [formerly called Strother Field]; a place where they would ‘replace’ jet engines in commercial aircraft [based on an identified maintenance cycle(?)] At one point they did overhaul engines there as
You have a valid point, back in the forties and fifties it was thought that what was good for General Motors was good for the nation.Long run, thanks to mismanagement proven that mantra wrong. I’ve watched GM execs come and go with little change in the direction of a corporation. Harrison, OTOH, wants massive changes right now.
It was a different era and the large corporations had the upper hand. GM, Ford, Chrysler, and many other corporations helped us win WWII through their efforts at productionof military vehicles .In the forties, my dad worked on the DUKW development, the six by six trucks among others and I recall as a child visiting GM’s proving grounds at Milford while testing of military vehicles was still paramount. Secrey at that point did not seem to be of great concern given the opposition had no way of observing activities there. Today, GM’s proving ground in Milford is fenced and there are lots of Pines to obscure any view of operations there.
I am certain tree 68 can confirm my observation but OTOH he may be too young to recall some of those details. Laughingly said, I dont think Larry was around in the forties. He’s younger than I.
Although LEDs are taking over always considered GE light bulbs to be superior to any other brands. What happens to product support for locos when that department is spun off ?