Reports started circulating yesterday that PHH Corporation (NYSE: PHH), an outsource provider of mortgage and fleet management services, which is in the process of being acquired by General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) and The Blackstone Group, is having trouble getting financing as the banks are balking. This is somewhat comical, since both GE and Blackstone have the resources to close this $1.8 billion deal if they really wanted to.

As a reminder, GE Capital, the division acquiring PHH, was one of the great growth stories of the 1980s and early 1990s as Gary Wendt, a Welch lieutenant, built the company up by buying assets that were often left for dead by investors. However, today, GE's finance division is going after businesses that are peaking, not bottoming out.

Another point worth mentioning is how difficult it is for GE to do deals that can have an impact on its performance. With a market capitalization of $411 billion, doing deals $1.8 billion in size is going to have little impact on the colossal company. Although a great company, GE is not a great stock. The PHH transaction shows how difficult it is for this huge company to grow by acquisition and the silliness of it saying it cannot close the transaction because of bank financing.

Bob Nardelli's old boss Jack Welch seems to be one of the few people who think his appointment as the new Chrysler CEO is a good idea.

"This is an absolutely perfect fit,'' the former General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) chief executive told Bloomberg News. ``They've got to get cost, efficiency, service -- all those things in line. He's the best in the world at that."

Neutron Jack goes even further saying his relationship with GE's unions were fabulous and that Chrysler has "got to have straightforward, no-baloney, on-the-table relationships with the unions there. And Bob is perfect for that.''

As I've argued before, Nardelli was a success at General Electric. Then again, he wasn't the boss either. When he got to Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD), he quickly became an imperial CEO who seemed to care little what shareholders, employees or the media thought of him.

Chrysler needs someone who isn't out to win any popularity contests. Tough decisions have to be made. But leaders also need to be good listeners and willing to compromise, two qualities that Nardelli just doesn't seem to have.

Cerberus Capital has made a huge mistake in hiring disgraced former Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD) CEO Robert Nardelli to run Chrysler LLC. which it officially acquired Friday for $7.3 billion.

For one thing, he has no experience in the auto industry. Moreover, he was a horrible CEO at Home Depot, whose arrogance was matched by a lack of operational skills. The Atlanta-based retailer is in the process of selling off its HD Supply Division, which Nardelli built, to a private equity group lead by Bain Capital for $10.3 billion. Home Depot also lost market share to Lowes Cos. (NYSE: LOW) and saw its stock price fall about 8% under Nardelli's leadership.

The reasons and justifications for the appointment make no sense. The New York Times reported that Nardelli was hired for his "turnaround expertise" and won't be paid if the automaker "does not improve." I'm not quite sure what that means.

Nardelli was highly regarded when he worked for General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) and was one of the candidates to succeed Jack Welch when he retired. That reputation got him the job at Home Depot, where he earned an outrageous compensation package and the ire of shareholders. Maybe Cerberus thinks that Nardelli can bring the GE touch to Chrysler.

Unlike Home Depot, the workforce at Chrysler is unionized. Nardelli better keep his considerable ego in check during the current round of contract negotiations, otherwise he's going to have huge problems. Though considerably weakened, the UAW will probably be as ornery to deal with as any Wall Street investor.

Nardelli has got an incentive to keep his ego in check. If he can turn Chrysler around, he may get an ownership stake in the company that will make him far wealthier than he is today. Of course, he'll still be plenty rich if he fails too.

That's one of the perks of being a failed CEO.

Last week I reported on a new study suggesting that around a third of baby boomers don't have enough in savings to maintain their current standard of living in retirement. While I certainly think people need to save more money, I wasn't panicking yet. I wrote that, "Rather than seeking Florida retirement communities and golf courses, the senior citizens of the future may work longer, often on projects that have a social element. Remember, this is the group of people that brought us Woodstock and the Vietnam War protests -- I don't see them sitting by the beach."

MarketWatch's Marshall Loeb has a good piece on this very same issue. He starts with a nice quote from Jack Welch: "People don't want to sit on the beach just because they've hit 70. They're too vibrant. They want action: 70 is the new 55."

Loeb writes that "The appeal of early retirement is fading, and more and more folks are willing -- even eager -- to work beyond some mythic date. A record 24.6 million Americans age 55 and above are on the job."

Age discrimination is on the decline and so are "mandatory retirement ages" for certain companies and occupations.

This is great news for everyone: Older workers have a lot to teach younger workers, and working, at least part-time, late into life will likely slow mental deterioration (just like playing bridge does).

So let's not weep too much for the baby boomers. Many may not have enough to retire at 65, but that could work out just fine for them -- and society at large.

Next Tuesday I am scheduled to meet with General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) Chief Financial Officer Keith Sherin to discuss GE's performance and prospects. This meeting came at the company's initiation.

As a GE shareholder I have not been thrilled with the performance of the stock. Since September 7, 2001 when current CEO Jeff Immelt took over, the stock has risen 3% from $39.60, compared to a 40% increase in the S&P 500. Moreover, on the basis of its Price/Earnings to Growth (PEG) ratio of 1.5 -- based on a P/E of 19.5 and earnings forecast to grow 13% to $2.50 in 2008 -- GE looks somewhat overvalued to me.

So here are some questions I plan to ask:

• Since the current GE CEO took over, GE stock is up 3%, compared to a 40% increase in the S&P 500. Why has GE stock underperformed this average?
• GE stock has risen 23% in the last year, however, it trades at a PEG of 1.5 which makes it a bit expensive. Why should investors buy GE stock now?
• Since the Healthcare, Industrial and NBC Universal segments all saw revenues fall in the first half with relatively weak profit performance, why doesn't GE sell these businesses and invest the proceeds to increase its market share in the more financially successful Infrastructure and Commercial Finance units?
• If GE chooses to stay in Healthcare how will it offset the negative impact of the federal government's decision to cut reimbursements to nonhospital imaging centers?
• Under Jack Welch, GE's philosophy was to only be in businesses in which it could be #1 or #2. Recently NBC was ranked the 4th most watched network. Will GE sell NBC? If not, why is GE keeping NBC? How does NBC's coordination with other GE divisions increase GE's overall revenues or lower its costs?
• How vulnerable is the GE Money unit to an increase in consumer loan defaults? Is GE Money likely to experience accelerated revenue and profit growth in 2008 or slower growth? Why?
• What impact would a 10% decline in the dollar have on GE's Earnings Per Share (EPS)?
• What other external factors -- such as an increase in interest rates or a rise in energy prices -- represent the biggest risks to GE's EPS? How do you quantify those risks?

Please let me know which ones you'd like to add to the list.

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 stock.

Friday was a fascinating day for General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE); the shares were actually up $1 and trading volume was at 91 million shares, nearly triple the usual amount. The hoopla started when Citigroup research mentioned that GE should be broken up and spun off into separate companies. It's about time.

I have been writing about the possibility of GE splitting up for the past year for members of my website. It only makes sense. The problem with General Electric is that it has too many moving parts to properly predict consistent growth. GE is expected to generate revenues of $176 billion this year, with earnings per share of $2.22. For 2008, early consensus is for revenues of $196 billion and earnings per share of $2.48, barely a 10% increase over 2007.

Revenues are growing at slightly less than 10%. The 10% number is a magical number for Wall Street. If a company falls under that benchmark, serious questions about strategy and direction need to be asked -- and answered. Jeff Immelt, CEO, has been under the gun recently as the shares of GE have plodded along for the past six years in a narrow trading range. The bottom line is that there has been minimal growth for shareholders, but a decent dividend -- currently at $1.12, for a 3.1% yield.

GE has a market capitalization of $378 billion and is one of the most successful companies in the world. No question, investors who have owned the shares these past 20 years have been superbly and amply rewarded. The Jack Welch era saw skyrocketing growth of revenues and earnings, not to mention many new management principles crystallized in his books.

That was then -- this is now.

In recent months, we're seeing some of the most respected titans of finance making investments in industries that most individual investors wouldn't touch. While these investments might seem boring, the track records of these investors indicate that the returns could be anything but. Take a look:

On April 5th, I wrote about Carl Icahn's bid for WCI Communities, a real estate developer with interests in Florida, a state that has seen a lot of carnage in the real estate market of late. Mr. Icahn explained the investment like this: "My investment philosophy, generally, with exceptions, is to buy something when no one wants it. We made a fairly large investment and took control of several energy companies seven or eight years ago when they were way down. Housing is somewhat analogous."

Just as Icahn buys stuff when no one wants, Warren Buffett says that the secret to good investing is to be "greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy." A willingness to go against the commonly-held investment wisdom is at the core of the philosophies of both of these investors. On April 8th, BloggingStocks writer Jonathan Berr wrote that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) had become the largest shareholder of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. (NYSE: BNI). Very few investors that I know would even look at railroad stocks and, while no official reason has been given for Buffett's investment yet, this may be one of the factors that attracted him.

Media mogul Sam Zell recently purchased Tribune Media, which is one of the major players in the newspaper industry, a product that has been in decline for some years. Warren Buffett himself, also a holder of several newspapers has lamented that every time an elderly person dies, newspapers lose a reader they will never get back. Jack Welch has also expressed interest in acquiring the Boston Globe.

When we examine the philosophies of these great investors, we see a common theme: They are all willing to go against the consensus, and make investments that appear puzzling to most people. To learn about integrating elements of contrarian investing into your regimen, check out David Dreman's Contrarian Investment Strategies, one of my favorite books of all time. Also read his monthly column in Forbes.

The Commercial Finance division of General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE) is proposing a buyout of Japan's Sanyo Electric's (Other OTC:SANYY) credit operations for a cool $1.1 billion in cash. The board of Sanyo is recommending to the shareholders the acceptance of this deal. For GE, it is the smart move.

General Electric is a hugely diversified company with products ranging from light bulbs, aircraft engines, medical imaging equipment, kitchen and laundry appliances to water processing to media -- with its ownership of the NBC Network. GE has had a difficult time posting up growth numbers since CEO Jeff Immelt took the reins from the legendary Jack Welch some seven years ago. Welch was certainly in the right place at the right time and guided GE for a couple of decades as this company became one of America's largest corporations. Along the way, shareholders were amply rewarded by holding this stock.

The past few years have seen GE stall out and the shares have been a subpar performer. From early 2002 to present, the stock has been range-bound between $39 and $26 -- not exactly enamoring the long-term shareholders. Also, because of GE's massive presence in the S&P 500, institutions must own the shares. The pressure has mounted on Mr. Immelt to grow this companies earnings.

General Electric seems to be focused on the financial divisions to grow the earnings line more aggressively, and they are correct to do so. The GE Commercial Financial division has over $230 billion in assets and operates in more than 100 countries worldwide. There is leverage in this division that somehow the light bulb division will and cannot match. GE is acting more and more like a commercial bank, and with commercial bank margins. Using its mighty cash position and the currency of its shares, GE needs to acquire more assets in the commercial/consumer lending area if it expects to attain a solid 10% growth in revenues and earnings.

Ben Berkowitz is the business news editor for AOL. His weekly column looks at news stories with long-term significance that were initially overlooked.

The story you didn't read this week but should have is the almost off-handed way that super-billionaire Sam Zell said he'd perhaps like to buy Tribune Co. (NYSE: TRB). And if that wasn't enough, now everyone's favorite even-bigger billionaire Warren Buffett is said to be snapping up shares of the New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT).

These titans of industry understand something that even the Internet has not changed: owning a newspaper is both a mark of prestige and an easy way to have a very loud voice. Anyone who thinks their motives are altruistic has perhaps been sniffing too much newsprint.

Sam Zell is a real-estate baron. What on earth would he do with a newspaper chain? (Yes, Trib also owns the Cubs, and some TV stations, and a few other properties, but the same question applies. There are easier ways to own a baseball team.)

Keep asking: why does housing developer and art patron Eli Broad want the Los Angeles Times? Or supermarket magnate Ron Burkle? Why would insurance heavyweight Hank Greenberg want the New York Times? Why does Jack Welch want the Boston Globe? Hint: remember the rumors about Welch trying to steer election coverage in various NBC newsrooms in 2000.

Simple: they want to control mainstream media outlets to push their agendas. Broad has a vision for changing the future of Los Angeles. Burkle is a big Democratic supporter. Greenberg has been abused mercilessly in the press for the financial doings at AIG. Welch's wife is a journalist.

The motives for Zell and Buffett are less clear; maybe Zell wants to take a crack at Trib for the sake of it? Great businessmen love challenges. And Buffett, well, just do what the man says. He buys it, you buy it. Really, he didn't get rich on his looks or fashion sense.

Jeff Zucker appears to have won the race to succeed Robert Wright as CEO of General Electric Company's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal. I'm not sure if this is good for GE shareholders.

Zucker, who famously produced the Today Show and extended Friends's popular run, has seen NBC's ratings stumble to fourth place. Although he has championed some shows that have done well -- such as Sunday Night Football and Heroes -- the reality remains that NBC used to be first and it's not anymore. A few weeks ago, CNNMoney reported that NBC was behind The Walt Disney Company's (NYSE: DIS) ABC and CBS Corporation's (NYSE: CBS) CBS in the Nielsen ratings for the coveted 18 to 49 year old demographic group.

In addition to the weak ratings, NBC's numbers are not too hot either. While its revenues grew 10% to $16.2 billion in 2006, its operating profit fell 6% to $2.9 billion. As a proportion of GE's total, NBC contributed to 10% of GE revenues in 2005 and 2006 during which time NBC's operating income contribution fell from 13% to 11% of GE's total. This performance is not bad, but it's not spectacular either.

In spite of the $814 million write-down that swung the New York Times Company to a loss for the fourth quarter, the Times has no plans to sell its Boston Globe unit. The company has received offers to buy the Globe from former General Electric CEO (and UMass grad/Boston icon) Jack Welch.

The fact that the Times isn't interested in selling the Boston Globe is, I think, a bullish sign for the industry. Industry executives still see value in the brands, even as they lose business rapidly to other media outlets. Last, month, I wrote a piece asking whether newspapers are the new railroads. If the depressed valuations that newspapers are receiving from the market are attracting the likes of Jack Welch, and the New York Times likes the Globe too much to sell to him, investors may want to take notice. There may be bargains in the industry.

The New York Times Co. (NYSE:NYT)'s fourth-quarter earnings report on Wednesday will be lousy. Analysts are expecting profit to be 46 cents compared with 64 cents a year earlier with revenue little changed at $903.9 million, according to Thomson Financial.

One of the company's few bright spots is the company's online business such as the About.Com web site, which have been showing strong revenue growth. The company's much larger print newspapers business continues to falter. Last month, the company said advertising would rise in the low single-digits at the Times and be flat to slightly down at the Boston Globe.

Chief Executive Janet Robinson has repeatedly said that the Ochs-Sulzberger family has no interest in changing the dual class of ownership that keeps them in control of the company. The company also has stressed that it has no interest in selling the Boston Globe to a group of local investors including former General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE) Chief Executive Jack Welch. Meanwhile, it's been cutting jobs and has sold off its small broadcast television business.

There's little relief in sight for the company's long-suffering shareholders, who have seen the stock plunge 17 percent over the past year, underperforming Dow Jones & Co. (NYSE:DJ), Washington Post Co. (NYSE:WPO), Gannett Inc. (NYSE:GCI) and even the beleaguered Tribune Co. (NYSE:TRB).

Dow Jones has lately shown some resilience under CEO Rich Zannino who has overseen the shrinking and redesign of the Wall Street Journal. It will be interesting to see if the Times also makes big changes as well. For instance, I wonder if readers have the time to devote to epic features that run in the paper such as the story in Sunday's business section on Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT).

Also check out some other earnings reports that we're following, and let us know what you're expecting.

This post is written as part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst 2006. Vote for Bob Nardelli or check out the other overpaid CEOs.

Former General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) executive Bob Nardelli lost out to Jeff Immelt in the race to succeed Jack Welch as CEO. And The Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD) shareholders would have been better off if Nardelli had repotted himself elsewhere.

Since Nardelli joined Home Depot as CEO in December 2000, HD is down 40% compared to a 120% increase for competitor Lowe's Companies Inc. (NYSE: LOW). In the last five years, Home Depot's revenue grew at a 12.3% compound annual growth rate to $90.1 billion and its net income increased at a 17.7% annual rate to $6.1 billion -- not bad, but a far cry from Lowe's 18.2% revenue growth and 27.8% profit growth during the same period.

And all this inferior performance at Home Depot would not be so bad if Nardelli weren't so egregiously overpaid. He received roughly $30 million in 2005, almost six times the $5.5 million that Robert Niblock, Lowe's CEO, took home in 2005.

Investors in the market for bargain CEOs should stay away from Home Depot.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm, and a Professor of Management at Babson College. He owns GE stock and has no financial interest in Home Depot or Lowe's.

When Jack Welch retired from General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), he went to rival Siemens (NYSE:SI). He wasn't really going to buy the Boston Globe or live with his younger wife, the defrocked editor of the Harvard Business Review, that was just smoke.

How can you tell? Simply put, over the last five years, Siemens stock is up 60% and GE's is down almost 15%. Welch must have gone there. Siemens performance has his fingerprints all over it.

Profits at Siemens rose eight-fold in its latest quarter, driven by its power-transmission and automation units. It got rid of its cellphone unit, which was not No. 1 or No. 2 in its market, so they sold it. Just like Welch would have. Revenue for the entire company hit €23.92 billion for the quarter up from €23.6 billion in the quarter a year ago. Profits were helped by the cutting of thousands of jobs, just like Neutron Jack would have done.

I guess that it's only fitting that in a day where GateHouse Media shares debut in a successful IPO, that we also hear that The Boston Globe might be sold.

GateHouse Media, Inc. (NYSE:GHS), a local newspaper and online publisher, rose 20% in its market debut today before closing up 17.61%, or $3.17, from its increased pricing of $18 a share. More on GHS IPO here.

Today, we also learned of preliminary plans by no other than former General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE) CEO, Jack Welch and advertising exec Jack Connor to buy The Boston Globe from The New York Times Co. (NYSE:NYT).

Investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) helps the two investors with the potential deal. According to some involved in the discussion, JPMorgan has valued the Globe at $550 million to $600 million, well below the $1.1 billion The Times paid for it in 1993. This isn't that surprising since The Globe financial results haven't been stellar to say the least.

Welch and Connor are both Boston residents, which fits the recent trend of returning newspapers to local hands. However, The Times has repeatedly said the The Globe isn't for sale.

[Photo Chris Kirkman]