It’s been a good week for the company that counts Thomas Edison as a founder.
Early in the week, General Electric (GE) announced plans to divide into three distinct companies—GE Aerospace, GE HealthCare, and GE Vernova. Yesterday the company announced strong quarterly earnings and for the most part beat Wall Street estimates.
CEO Larry Culp says that though the current economic environment makes operations difficult, he is proud of the positive growth the company has made.
The recovering aerospace part of the business strengthened GE’s numbers, and the company expects the aviation demand to remain strong.
Of the three businesses GE will divide into, aerospace has performed the best with revenue up 47% from last year. Total orders and total revenues were up 2%.
Since the 2008 recession when GE’s stock fell 42%, the company has been struggling to recover. And from 2001 to 2017, under the leadership of CEO Jeff Immelt, GE’s stock dropped 85% in value. So Culp’s restructuring efforts are meant to initiate a long, slow return to greatness for this century-old company.
And Wall Street is taking notice. “We view GE overall as poised for sustainable improvements in topline, earnings, and free cash flow,” says Citigroup analyst Andy Kaplowitz.
