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.

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.

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.

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]

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has many issues to contend with at the company's current size and complexity. Among them is the disparity of its growing line of products; the lower profit margins offered by hardware sales in comparison to its traditional high margin software sales; and the increased number of formidable competitors it faces in every direction it looks.

This is the continuation of Monday's story Micro'soft' vs Micro'hard' -- Break it up fellas! In the first article I touched upon the scale of Microsoft and their lack of agility. I concluded that even several tremendous successes (swallowing Apple (AAPL) whole was used to exemplify) would only have marginal affect on the share price in the aggregate.

This story is not about whether Microsoft makes worthy products, or is inventive, or can create the next big thing. This is about what Microsoft is, and what it should be as a company going forward. Does Microsoft want to get back to its high-growth days and generate the kind of excitement a Google, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) or MySpace (recently acquired by Newscorp (NYSE:NWS)) does, or do they want to be a large conglomerate. Given the number of new products that are announced weekly, and all the unfinished business the company has started, it is apparent that the die has been cast for the latter; it is a conglomerate.

Conglomerate \Con*glom"er*ate\, n.

Webster's: That which is heaped together in a mass or compacted from various sources; a mass formed of fragments; collection; accumulation.

OR

Jack Welch may have made a bad call in choosing Jeff Immelt as his successor at General Electric (NYSE: GE), according to today's USA Today.

No question, GE's stock has been a disappointment over the last five years, but it's silly to judge Immelt based on the stock price performance of the companies that his rivals went on to lead. As Warren Buffett has quipped -- if you put a great manager in a lousy business, the business always wins. By that logic, comparing Immelt to his predecessor seems a more apt comparison.

And by that standard, I'd give Immelt a gentleman's C. For managing Wall Street, I'd give him a C- -- compared to Welch's A- -- and for managing GE's financial performance, he'd get a B-, compared to Welch's A.

Over the years, thousands of executives have turned to the wisdom of GE's legendary former CEO, Jack Welch. However, his principles appear to be for another generation. In fact, a recent article in Fortune does a deep dive on this.

The problem is that there is no clear replacement. However, in light of the big comeback in Hewlett Packard, the company's CEO, Mark Hurd, just might be the next management guru.

When he came on board last year, there was lots of skepticism. How can you move a sprawling organization like HP? Not doubt, several high-powered executives tried.

Well, so far, Hurd is proving that it can be done. And, we got lots of evidence of this yesterday, when the company posted its blow-out results.

Net income surged to $1.5 billion (excluding non-cash items), up from last year's $73 million. The number beat the Street estimate (this has been the case for the past five quarters).

Hurd has been aggressive on several fronts. There has been lots of cost-cutting and streamlining of operations. However, he has also moved into the higher-margin/higher growth software space. This has been through acquisitions, such as of Mercury Interactive Corp.

But, somehow, Hurd is improving the value proposition of its products. For example, HP is making headway against tough competitors like Dell.

The stock has surged since Hurd joined the company. In fact, HP's market cap is $101 billion. No doubt, he wants to overtake the #1 spot from IBM, which has a market cap of $120 billion.

Then again, Hurd's prior gig was the CEO of NCR. He had the daunting challenge of turning that company around. So, in a way, it was a warm-up for the challenges at HP.

With the success of Hurd, I'm sure there will be an emerging market of books, tapes and articles on the "Hurd Way." Actually, Hurd wrote a book a couple years ago that may get much more interest (The Value Factor: How Global Leaders Use Information for Growth and Competitive Advantage).

It's still early to see if Hurd can take the Welch mantel. But so far, so good.

Tom Taulli is the author of a variety of books, such as the Complete M&A Handbook (Random House) and operates InvestorOffering.com

When Jack Welch arrived at General Electric (GE) he examined what was working and what was not; what was profitable and what was not; and where the future would prosper. He established priorities based on his findings and took action! 

Transistor radios had to go! Jet engines and finance gad to grow!

I think Dick Parsons started on that path and then allowed inertia to set in, becoming more passive as he consolidated his power base. Now he seems overly methodical plodding. When Carl Icahn came along and tried to prod him into becoming more like Welch, he resisted and then took some steps to hold off the tides of change.

Hey Dick! Take a look at your price-to-book (1.25) and then take action!  (That link goes to my first "Hey Time Warner" post from yesterday).

You can read more about me and my investment philosophy here. Also for for value check out my my post on dividends! or another equally important  Magic words: return on invested capital. Which stocks perform best?

Poor General Electric. Without its charismatic leader Jack Welch at the helm, it’s like the big friendly nice guy of the investing party -- it tries so hard, but gets so little attention.

On April 13 GE posted first quarter results that included double-digit increases in earnings, revenues and cash flow. Its current steady Eddie Chief Executive, Jeff Immelt, boasted on the conference call that new orders were up 33% and cash from operating activities had more than doubled to $6.7 billion. Those are heady achievements for a company with revenues of $38 billion last quarter alone.

But did the stock price move? Not really. It fell a bit for two days after reporting earnings and climbed the next -- like just about everything else on April 18 -- leaving it now at around $34. That’s squarely in the middle of its ho-hum 52-week trading range of $32 to $37.