After posting a disastrous first quarter. General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt is resisting calls from Wall Street to break up the conglomerate.

"There are more reviews and intensity, but no real change to the strategy,'' Immelt said told Bloomberg News. ``The strategy remains intact.''

Really? Shares of the Fairfield, Conn.-based company have slumped about 13% this year. The stock had its biggest fall in 20 years after reporting disappointing results. Immelt, though, either is oblivious or cool under fire. I am not sure which.

General Electric (NYSE: GE) not only disappointed Wall Street investors this past Friday with its horrible results, but shocked investors as CEO Jeffrey Immelt gave the "all is alright" signal in mid-March. He should resign as he has had nearly 7 years to grow this once great company.

GE should also bite the bullet and spin off several segments into separately traded companies. I wrote about this extensively last year for AOL, but now the rationale is abundantly clear. This company--a major conglomerate--cannot deliver decent shareholder returns. Immelt took the reigns of GE on September 7,2001 when the stock was at $40. Nearly 7 years later the shares are at $32 and barely holding on. I find it amusing that some "value" investors think GE is interesting at this level. These were the same investors that found GE interesting and a value-play at $38 last year.

The problem with GE is not that it's too big: the problem is it is too complex. The largest industrial company in the world now is Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) with expected revenues this year of $550 billion. This company however is strictly in the energy sector--it's measurable and quantifiable. GE is a mish-mash of businesses, from light bulbs to jet engines to appliances to consumer loans, whereby some segments are doing well and others horribly. How does any analyst assign a proper PE ratio expectation?

One segment, the infrastructure division grew its revenues by an admirable 23% this past March quarter and its profits by 17%. With this kind of growth and visibility into the next 18-24 months on revenues because of contractual commitments, this division alone could command a 25 + PE ratio. GE as a whole is now trading at 14 X 2008 EPS estimates of $2.20-2.30.

The GE Financial segment was woeful and provided the negative surprise. This segment on its own would trade at a PE ratio of between 9-11 times. The NBC-Universal division showed only 3% year-over-year growth, but cash flowed very well. This segment should command a 15-17 PE multiple.

General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE) got more than a lot of Wall Street observers expected for its plastics unit. Saudi Basic Industries Corp ponied up $11.6 billion in a cash-and-debt deal. GE will use the money to buy back more of its shares, a nifty way to raise EPS when earnings themselves are not growing as fast as investors would like.

Even though the deal has been expected for several days, and GE announced its plan to sell the unit several months ago, no one seems to care, at least not based on the conglomerate's stock price. The share price did get a bump up in late April when talk about breaking the company into pieces resurfaced in the markets. The stock has traded sideways since then, and is still flat over the last two years compared to an increase of well over 20% in the S&P.

Based on GE's public filings, the plastics operation contributed less than 4% to revenue. The transaction should have almost no effect on net income.

Of course, what investors want from GE is what it is not giving them: a major restructuring. GE's board wants the company to remain a conglomerate. There is no other conclusion to draw from the company's actions.The stock buy-back is cold comfort when the stock won't go up.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE), Gentleman's C CEO Jeff Immelt, is close to selling GE Plastics to Saudi Arabia's largest public company, the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation. You'll remember Saudi Arabia as the supplier of 15 of the 19 9/11 mass murderers.

But Immelt is going to collect $11 billion and dump an under- performing unit where both he and his predecessor Jack Welch worked. Competition and price increases in raw materials have squeezed profit margins, even though GE Plastics increased product prices. For 2006, the division reported $6.6 billion in revenue -- about the same as in 2005 and its profit fell 22% to $674 million.

The deal raises national security concerns but investors seem to like it a little -- GE is up 1% in early trading.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He owns GE shares.

When Warren Buffett announced he wanted to use between $40 and $60 billion to buy a company several days ago, picking a target for the billionairest of all billionaires became the favorite pastime of financial writers everywhere -- and our bloggers were as eager as anyone else to come up with just the thing for the guy who already has everything (and everything, in this case, includes bunches of shares of companies as diverse as dull sheetrock manufacturer USG Corp. (NYSE: USG) to hip shoe company Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE)).

Of course, Buffett's needs are unique. First of all, the company has to be both big and a good value -- no 80x P/E multiples for Warren. It has to be a relatively simple business (I'm thinking nanotech is out), have a good management team and no dark and dirty secrets (so sub-prime lenders are probably off the list). Finally, the company should have solid, long-term competitive advantages.

Sheldon Liber suggests a couple that might make the grade: Allstate Corp. (NYSE: ALL), the insurance company, which at about $38 billion in market capitalization and a 7.8x P/E ratio fits both the "big" and "cheap" qualifiers. Plus, we all know that Warren Buffett loves insurance companies, and given its retail approach, it's not much of a competitor with longterm portfolio company GEICO. Emerson Electric (NYSE: EMR) also seems a good candidate with its $37 billion market cap and 19x P/E ratio -- but is it simple enough? Its business is, according to Hoover's, making "a host of electrical, electromechanical, and electronic products, many of which are used to control gases, liquids, and electricity." Hmmm.

When Gary Sattler suggests Warren might buy General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE)'s plastics division, it's a good concept (simple, well-managed) but the price is way too low at around $10-12 billion. A commenter, however, brings up a good replacement in Lowe's Companies Inc. (NYSE: LOW); it has a $47 billion market cap and a reasonable P/E ratio of 15.5x. What's more, it has none of the bad-management baggage of competitor Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD). Does it have a "moat," though? I suppose that's a question for Warren. He does own some of each company, meaning that he's already emotionally invested in the sector (a plus) although it's obvious from our near-tie in the Battle of the Brands that neither holds a substantial consumer-facing edge competitively.

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) reported very strong earnings last week of $0.44 per share, versus $0.40 for the same quarter last year. This company is so large and so diverse that it has been compared to herding cats. So many moving parts and somewhat dependent on global growth as opposed to just United States growth. CEO Jeffrey Immelt has stated the goal to grow earnings at 2-3 times the global GDP -- that's global!!

General Electric's stock price is sitting right at the mid-point of its 52-week range. At Friday's closing price of $35.38, it's $3 above the 52-week low, and $3 above the 52-week high. If GE continues to maintain double-digit percentage earnings growth, investors will begin to chase the shares back up to the high side of the 52-week range. Immelt has pressured his multiple businesses to perform and perform now.

General Electric is focused more on building existing businesses rather than expanding through acquisitions or joint ventures. GE will focus this year and next on the lucrative finance units. GE Capital is the goose that lays the golden egg; it's predictable and fairly high margin. Also, GE Capital and its subsidiaries are global in reach and scope. The commercial finance division is making a strategic and profitable acquisition in Japan. It's all about the margins.

GE pays a healthy and handsome dividend of $1.12, representing a 3.2% current yield. Investors look to GE for its current yield, but if GE can maintain a steady 10% growth rate for revenues and earnings, the shares will only accelerate from here.

Many institutional investors think GE is a bit undervalued at this price level, due to the expected margins gains from GE focuses on the capital lending business. They are probably correct and GE is a buy here for conservative growth accounts.

Georges Yared is the CIO of Yared Investment Research.