Quote:
Originally Posted by Boomer
Thank you. As soon as you said, “Immelt,” I remembered conversations about him. We did not work for GE but know people who did.
I remember conversations about Welch, too. During his reign, he took them into finance — the beginning of the end??
And then came Immelt.
I understand what you mean about magic and mirrors.
It has been sad to see the demise of GE. It was once known as a company that took care of its business and its people and its investors. But unrestrained greed is bad economics.
I appreciate your answer about IBM. The dividend and being so far off its 52-week high got my attention. But I don’t know anything about Red Hat. Thank you for the perspective.
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I'm a former GE employee (GE Aerospace until it was acquired by Martin Marietta/Lockheed Martin) and a graduate of GE's Financial Management Program. In those days GE was proud of its tradition of conservative, accurate accounting methods, and you could trust their financial statements as accurate. That's no longer true. Jack was a great CEO who fell under the spell of "easy money" in financial services, then Immelt took over and completely screwed up the company. Jack's selection of Immelt as his successor should go down in history as the worst decision ever by a CEO. This is from a USA Today article in 2018: "When Jack Welch turned the keys of the General Electric Co. over to Jeff Immelt in 2001, GE was a well-run and greatly admired profit machine, stocked with exceptional management talent and innovative practices. Over the next 16 years, while Immelt held the top job, he completely demolished the House that Jack Built."