Play ball! Split up GE and see what happens

Lets split the unions first before you split GE. GE will be dragged by the union pension, benefits and freeloader expenses like GM is now. GE is a heavily unionized company. It is amazing that GE is still pullling in profits. Union will shorlty catch up with GE and drag it down. Maybe GE still has a younger workforce than GM, but not for long...The geezers are coming, the geezers are coming...

Don't know where you're getting your info, but it's about 40 years out of date. GE's workforce is well under 15% unionized. GE has aggressively fought with, worked with, and/or cajoled it's workforce, both union and non-union, on wages, benefits, and work rules to keep labor costs down. It also makes very liberal use of subsidiaries and (usually foreign) partners to manufacture those things which it still does make.

Most of GE's revenues and profits do not come from manufacturing anymore, and haven't for some time. In fact, much of it's sales and profits are generated overseas. GE is the number one or two player in almost every business that it is in. Many businesses, like jet engines have only one or two competitors (Pratt and Whitney, and Rolls-Royce in the cited instance), and those competitors have greater union obligations that GE.

It's pension fund is HUGELY overfunded, and the number of retirees drawing from it never changes much. They die off at about the same rate at which they are added.

A P/E mutiple of 16 is historically low for GE. It pays a decent dividend, and is diverse enough to almost be a mutual fund all by itself. If one of its businesses is down, another is up. This stock should be selling for about 40% more than it does. It' a bargain at what it sells for right now. BTW, GE thinks so, too. They bought back about 200 million of their own shares last year.

And yeah, I own it.(In the interest of full disclosure.)

It is so easy to check the union information as applies to GE, its right there on the internet. Gumbo probably has an ax to grind or has been sadly misinformed. Misinformation is so prevalent today that everyone should be very careful about general statements. I hope Gumbo realizes how foolish he looks with his arguements.

i have said this time immemorial; ge is fine as it is. great businesses that lead their sectors; strong management with a culture of driving for success; very strong balance sheet. nbc is a problem but its a fashion problem ( one good season will turn the whole div. around). whats wrong with the stock price isnt what ge is doing....its what wall st is doing. the morons who work in trading, stock management, equity analysis, etc. have mentalities that cause them to root for silly cos. like coach leather, gen. motors(which is so bad its stock shouldnt be over $20),ralph lauren, abercrombie&fitch, etc. this is the randomness of wall st. most of these guys went to lousy colleges and probably live in nj. the very few with IQ's over 80 see the value of ge but they are too few in number.

Generating enthusiasm in the market and ensuring better coverage from Wall Street's analysts sound like very poor reasons to split a company like GE. The rest are a bit better, but not much. I think you would have more credibility if you mentioned as well some disadvantages. You know... losing the value of the brand, the culture and business practices, reputation, synergies... things you don't build up in a couple of years.