General Electric Company's (NYSE: GE) Healthcare segment is worth between $24.1 billion and $59.1 billion, according to my calculations.

GE Healthcare, which constituted 10.1%, 10.2% and 10.0% of GE's consolidated revenues in 2006, 2005 and 2004, respectively, manufactures, sells and services medical equipment including equipment for magnetic resonance (MR), computed tomography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, x-ray, patient monitoring, diagnostic cardiology, nuclear imaging, ultrasound, bone densitometry, anesthesiology and oxygen therapy, neonatal and critical care, and therapy.

I think GE Healthcare is a mixed bag for GE. Its technology is excellent and it has good relationships with those in the health care community. However, its revenues shrank because of regulatory problems -- the federal government cut reimbursements to nonhospital imaging centers, which bought less equipment from GE. I am wondering whether such regulatory challenges will impede GE Healthcare's growth in the future -- or whether new products can help revive the growth.

Assuming that GE Healthcare generates net income of $2.2 billion in 2007, here are the range of valuations based on the Price/Earnings ratios of the following peer companies:

• Siemens AG (NYSE: SI) P/E: 27.4. $59.1 billion
• Koninklijke Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG) P/E: 11.1. $24.1 billion

This is a very wide range of valuations and I am not particularly comfortable with this result so if you have any suggestions, please comment.

Conclusion: Does GE trade at a conglomerate discount?

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 General Electric shares and has no financial interest in the other securities mentioned in this post.

Breaking down GE Healthcare: A BloggingStocks series originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 30 Jul 2007 12:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.