GE's Immelt sees strong 2007, dismisses NBC sale talk

Posted Nov 14th 2007 10:48AM by Jonathan Berr
Filed under: Forecasts, General Electric (GE), Economic Data, Housing

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) today gave a bullish outlook for 2007 helped by growth in energy, healthcare and infrastructure.

Revenue will be $175 billion this year, with a profit of $23 billion, according to a Dow Jones report. That's better than the $171.6 billion average consensus estimate expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial. Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt crowed on his company's CNBC network that "global growth is really substantial now." Like other CEOs, Immelt sees the housing market as "tough," which may hurt some GE businesses such as appliances.

Immelt dismissed talk on Wall Street calling for the conglomerate to dump its NBC Universal media and entertainment business, pointing to its improving performance. "I am all about running NBC Universal for the long-term," he said.

The company also plans to make "small acquisitions" in the energy area, he said. Energy is poised for strong growth, boosting revenue by 50% to more than $30 billion by 2009, helped by strong demand for nuclear and renewable energy, according to Reuters.

Shares of General Electric, which have gained 6.5% this year, are up 44 cents to $39.65 in early morning trading.

Tags: GE, GE APPLIANCES, GE ENERGY, GE HEALTHCARE, GeAppliances, GeEnergy, GeHealthcare, JEFFREY IMMELT, JeffreyImmelt, NBC UNIVERSAL, NbcUniversal

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

11-14-2007 @ 11:11AM

Jgoo said...

GE’s news is very welcome at a time when most of the news coming out of Wall Street is negative, especially news from financial institutions. The NewsVisual story on Bank of America’s announcement of new loses http://www.newsvisual.com/newsvisual/2007/11/experienced-boa.html should give the financial community pause for thought, since it bodes ill for the foreseeable future.