General Electric (NYSE: GE) was a darling of Wall Street for a couple of decades under the tutelage of legendary CEO Jack Welch. Mr. Welch retired in September 2001 turning the reins over to hand-picked successor Jeffrey Immelt. Give Immelt a break for the first 18 months as he had to guide the company through the 9-11 tragedy and of course the normal honeymoon period. Since that grace period expired in early 2003, GE has severely under performed the market and time has come for Mr. Immelt to hand the reigns over to someone else.

It is very difficult following a "legend" as Jack Welch. Many business schools model a course or two on management based on Welch's methods of letting an executive run a division creatively and freely--just return the expected numbers and all is well. Jack Welch "raised" Jeffrey Immelt in this style and picked him as the CEO to replace himself. The styles however were not transferable. Times and the global landscape have changed since Welch's departure.

There's a bold flag flying above the solar energy camp, and I like the dialog coming from at least one of the men raising that flag. T. J. Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE: CY), laid it on the line recently when he stated his opinion regarding CEOs like General Electric's (NYSE: GE) Jeff Immelt, Wal-Mart's (NYSE: WMT) Lee Scott, and Peter Darbee of PG&E. Rodgers was quoted by CNN Money as saying, "Every one of the names you just mentioned would flunk his ass in the most rudimentary test about global warming."

It's not necessarily that I agree with what Rodgers said, but any man who has stuck with a viable manufacturing concept for as long as Rodgers has stuck with the truth of solar electrical generation, and then has the gumption to call into question the motives of his peers in pursuing a similar path, gets a nod of respect from me. It's not about what he said, it's about why he said it.

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) will be reporting earnings tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m. EDT, and the company is set to have a handsome profit after the $11.6 billion sales of its plastics division. CEO Jeff Immelt has focused on selling slower-growth divisions in recent years to focus on faster growth areas like water processing technology, health care and eco-products ( products that help communities save energy).

The company's Q3 results are expected to include a $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion in collective charges, with a good 20% of that figure related to its exit from the mortgage business it operates under the WMC Mortgage Securities brand. Like every mortgage company with a subprime arm, GE's mortgage portfolio has lost money in recent times as consumers went belly-up with mortgage loan resets and foreclosures. The carnage rages on today and won't stop in 2008 according to many market watchers. There are many other financial transactions that will affect quarterly numbers as well. GE is a busy company these days, but that's to be expected with the enormous diversification it has globally.

Average analyst expectations call for an EPS of $0.50 on $42.42 billion in quarterly revenue. Specifically referenced as a major contributor to GE's expected results was the performance of its global infrastructure unit (everything from aircraft engines to steam turbines). Stay tuned to BloggingStocks in the morning, as I'll be covering GE's results in a liveblog right here.

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%

General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) has a long, long way to go before attaining its 2000 high of $60 per share. This company has vastly under performed the markets, its peer group and any other measuring stick investors want to use. GE was a glamorous stock in the 1980's and 1990's under the watchful eye of CEO guru Jack Welch. He may have gotten out just in time!!

General Electric does suffer from the laws of large numbers.With a $400 billion market capitalization and a revenue run-rate this year of $175 billion, growing this beast is like moving the mountain. Actually, moving the mountain might be easier!. CEO Jeffrey Immelt, a lifer at GE, was hand-picked by Jack Welch back in early 2001, and Immelt took the reigns in late 2001, just after 9-11. His mission is formidable and onerous as GE flourished under Welch. Immelt's tenure has been marred by an under-performing company with a similar under-performing stock. Many shareholders and analysts, including yours truly, have done the back-of-the-envelope analysis and can say that GE broken up into various public units is worth more than $50 per share. The stock is currently at $39.15, a good 20-25% below break up value.

I have argued that breaking up GE would be good for the shareholders and its employees. New CEOs and boards of directors for the separate entities would bring new ideas, fresh perspectives and individual company expectations. GE is not only an American company, but a global giant. GE has operations and sell its products world wide.

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) Chief Executive Jeff Immelt's has given Jeff Zucker plenty of chances to improve NBC Universal. Now, it's time for someone else to run the media conglomerate.

Though NBC's performance is showing signs of improvement, it continues to be one of the laggards in the GE portfolio. Investors are clamoring for the Fairfield, Conn.-based company to spin-off or sell the media conglomerate. NBC prime time ratings are stagnant and still overly dependent on the "Law and Order" franchise. While I am a huge fan of "Scrubs" and "My Name is Earl," I realize that the quirky humor of those sitcoms may not appeal to everyone.

Yesterday, Zucker reshuffled the top management at NBC, ousting programming head Kevin Reilly and replacing him with with Ben Silverman and Mark Graboff. Maybe Zucker thought Reilly, whose contract was recently extended, was working too hard. I'm surprised that Zucker didn't escape the axe himself.

Indeed, anytime a company fills a job that one person did with two or more people, that's a bad sign. It's a recipe for instability and will guarantee turf battles between high-powered executives. However, this does allow Zucker the chance to spread blame around to more people when things go wrong or don't go right fast enough.

All of a sudden several portfolio managers I have worked with these past 16 years are getting interested again in General Electric (NYSE: GE). The subject of GE has surfaced at some investor conferences and the sharks may be circling the tank. So what's causing all the renewed interest in GE as it has underperformed these past five to six years?

That's exactly what has caused the interest in GE: its underperformance. I have written extensively these past three months about GE's obligation to maximize shareholder value. Either grow the company to satisfactory levels and have the stock perform or begin the process of evaluating the break up value of GE. The recently announced sale of its plastics/chemical division for over $411 billion was a good start.

Now there are indications the company is taking aggressive executive action at its laggard media property NBC/Universal. The executive changes at NBC are in hopes of raising the ratings going forward and of course calming the nerves of the major advertisers. One portfolio manager I have known for years, who runs a $10 billion growth fund has begun to add GE shares to his portfolio. He had 200,000 shares and is raising the exposure to one million shares. His reasoning is CEO Jeffrey Immelt has this year and possibly next to raise the profile and share price.

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.

General Electric's (NYSE: GE) Jeff Immelt just made the inference during a CNBC interview that GE will not be showing any interest in Dow Jones (NYSE: DJ) and implied that it is not going to jettison its NBC media unit. There have been many reports that both would or could occur, and this last interview should put both issues to bed.

This is actually good news if you prefer the safety of a conglomerate in a slower economy. If you prefer only smaller growth stocks, then you have many other choices. It really boils down to your investor preference, but GE has safety in diversity and has built itself up over the better half of the last century. I have previously noted that a break-up would be a bad idea in the recent past and stand by that.

Immelt said in the interview the equivalent of "we have no interest at all in acquiring Dow Jones." He noted the newspaper business as not for them and also said he has respect for Rupert Murdoch and News Corp (NYSE: NWS), but any speculation left at all that Immelt or GE was interested in Dow Jones probably just got shot out the window.

Also he noted that GE wants to keep NBC and is happy with it. He noted once again that it would sell a business if someone else can run it better, but he noted that he expects to see double-digit growth at the end of the year in the unit. He also noted the upcoming Olympic coverage. So this is keeping that door open down the road but will kill any such speculation in the near-term.

Jon Ogg is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

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.

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.

A few days ago I wrote that General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE) was at a bargain price with decent growth in front of it. This morning, Jeff Immelt, GE's CEO announced the sale of GE's investment in Swiss Re, a large insurance concern. But he also took the occasion to re-affirm the first quarter outlook of $0.43-0.45 earnings per share and endorsed the growth rate and analysts numbers for calender 2007.

This in itself is a huge vote of confidence to the market. GE and other large companies have been reticent to endorse whole year's numbers in the past 5 years. It has been a communication game of quarter to quarter. The fact that Jeff Immelt endorsed 2007 means he and his management team are seeing a lot of visibility in GE's various business units.

The other statement that will give comfort to analysts and investors is GE selling non-strategic investments and re-investing the proceeds into core business units. This strategy allows for organic growth within the company's core competencies.

With earnings per share expectations of $2.20-2.23 for 2007, GE is trading at a P/E of 15x with a 3.2% dividend yield. Sounds like GE is bringing good things to life.

Georges Yared is the author of "Stop Losing Money Today" and "Baby Boomer Investing...Where do we go from here?"

Yesterday's departure of Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C) executive Todd Thomson may have been helped along by his use of Citigroup's corporate jet to fly General Electric Company's (NYSE: GE) CNBC reporter, Maria Bartiromo from Asia. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Todd & Maria-gate Memo will follow the ongoing saga.

This morning's Wall Street Journal [subscription required] reports that Todd Thomson used $5 million of his Citigroup marketing budget to finance a Sundance Channel program which was slated to be hosted by Robert Redford and Maria Bartiromo. [Bartiromo is no longer slated to host this program].

But wait, there's more. In 2005, current Chief Operating Officer Bob Druskin spotted Thomson having dinner with Bartiromo at the ritzy Daniel restaurant while Druskin was hosting a holiday dinner there for his investment banking management team.

Last November, Thomson flew Bartiromo to speak to Citigroup's private-banking clients at luncheons in Hong Kong and Shanghai. He flew with a group of Citigroup employees to Asia, but flew back to the U.S. on the corporate jet with Bartiromo.

After this November incident, Citigroup CEO, Chuck Prince, asked Thomson to stop spending Citigroup money on Bartiromo. Six weeks later, Thomson surprised Prince with The Sundance sponsorship announcement. This prompted Thomson's departure.

This saga raises questions of interest to Citigroup and GE investors, including:

• After all of Prince's blunders, are Citigroup directors debating his fate?
• Was GE CEO, Jeff Immelt, involved in approving Bartiromo's $48,000 flight from Asia on Citigroup's jet?
• Will GE require CNBC anchors to disclose their business relationships with the companies they cover?

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm, a Professor of Management at Babson College, and editor of The Cohan Letter. He has appeared as a guest on CNBC and owns Citigroup and GE stock.

One of the world's largest companies, General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), will be acquiring some of the medical diagnostics business of Abbott Laboratories for $8.13 billion in cash, according to both companies as as late last week.

What does this move give GE? It will deeply increase the importance GE has been placing recently on its health care business, which right now is pegged at a $16 billion figure for GE annually.

GE CEO Jeff Immelt said the acquisition is "consistent with GE's strategy to invest in high-technology global infrastructure businesses that deliver strong top-line growth, earnings expansion and expanded margins." Easy enough said.

Abbott's partial sale to GE will net the company about $6 billion in after-tax cash according to the company, which will use the money primarily to pay down debt and supplement share repurchases.

I rattled some cages by pulling back the curtain on General Electric (NYSE: GE). I did that for good reason. The way I see it, there are going to be some significant readjustments in the markets starting early next year. The heady upward spiral we've been watching just can't go on forever. I'm sorry I have to make that call but that's the way I see it. Values have to equalize sometime. Overvaluations need to recede and correct. I'm thinking it's time now to pull some profit, take a stance, and brace yourself for a bit of a downward ride.

That's why I'm so high on GE. In my view there's no better place to shore up some funds. In fact, I have heard of GE as being referred to as a marvelous hedge of protection when times get volatile. It sure looks that way to me. In his recent statement to investors, GE chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt made his declaration of his company's strategic position clear and strong. Consistent growth, responsible investment, conservative diversification, and quality people, these are the things which Mr. Immelt banks on. This one handy quote from CEO Immelt puts GE's performance for 2006 into a nice sturdy package:

"The year is going to be a good year. Revenue will be $163 billion, up 10%. Earnings will be $20.5 billion, up 12%. Earnings per share up 15 or 16%. Cash flow at $25 billion, up 15%. Two point expansion and return on total capital and a pretty attractive segment profile. If you look across the company, really the only business that is turnaround mode is NBC Universal."