In yesterday's lunch with General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) CFO Keith Sherin, the discussion addressed a wide variety of issues regarding the way GE thinks about managing its portfolio of businesses. My overall conclusion is that GE has a rigorous process for deciding what to keep and what to sell but as an investor I wish it was more transparent about how it makes those decisions.
Here are some of the nuggets of insight about GE which I found particularly interesting:
- At the beginning of current CEO Jeff Immelt's reign, GE was trading at a Price/Earnings ratio of 40 -- it now trades at roughly half that level
- GE goes through an annual process of evaluating each of its businesses to assess whether to keep or sell them. In so doing, GE analyzes the profit potential of the industry, GE's competitive position, whether GE is "the best steward" to run the business in a "shareholder-friendly" way, whether the business can achieve its goals, and whether there are opportunities to invest capital at high rates of return.
- GE expects its businesses to earn returns on average total capital (ROTC) exceeding 20%
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