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GE profit tops forecasts despite finance weakness
AFP - Saturday, January 23
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NEW YORK (AFP) - – General Electric reported stronger-than-expected profits as the giant US conglomerate's results from energy and manufacturing offset weakness at its financial and media units.
Net profit was 3.0 billion dollars in the fourth quarter, down 19 percent from a year earlier, and was 2.9 billion dollars for common shareholders at the big conglomerate sometimes viewed as a proxy for the overall economy.
That pushed the profit for the full year to 11 billion dollars, including discontinued operations, representing a 38 percent decline from 2008.
"GE's environment has improved and we saw some encouraging signs at year-end," chairman and chief executive Jeff Immelt said.
"During the difficult economy of 2009, we took a series of actions to improve GE so that we would be positioned for growth in the future."
Immelt said the group was seeing increased orders for infrastructure and health-care equipment and that for its financial arm, "consumer delinquencies are stabilizing."
The overall profit amounted to 28 cents a share in the fourth quarter, two cents better than expected by analysts.
Revenues fell 10.4 percent to 41.4 billion dollars in the final quarter but were also ahead of expectations.
Full-year revenues fell 14 percent to 156.8 billion dollars, capping a difficult year for the company that traces its history back to 1878 and inventor Thomas Edison.
The company, which makes aircraft engines, energy equipment and owns the NBC Universal media entertainment group, said the profits from continuing operations fell 22 percent in the fourth quarter from the same period a year ago.
GE's energy unit, which makes wind turbines as well as oil and gas equipment, led the earnings with an operating profit of 2.2 billion dollars, up nine percent from a year ago.
The technology division, which includes GE's aircraft engine manufacturing, saw a 16 percent drop in operating earnings to 2.1 billion dollars.
Profits fell 30 percent to 602 million dollars at NBC Universal, the media-entertainment arm that GE has agreed to merge with Comcast.
The financial arm, GE Capital Finance, suffered a 67 percent plunge in earnings but stayed profitable, producing 167 million dollars. The unit has suffered from some of the same problems as banks in an environment of difficult credit and rising loan defaults.
"Capital Finance is executing well in a difficult environment," Immelt said. "Every segment at GE Capital was profitable with the exception of commercial real estate."
Deutsche Bank analyst Nigel Coe said GE had "a solid quarter" with better orders and profit margins and "real signs of stability" in the financial unit but said it was not clear how Wall Street would view the results.
In early trade, GE shares leapt 3.95 percent to 16.65 dollars.
Douglas McIntyre at 24/7 Wall Street said that even though GE topped forecasts, "there was plenty of bad news below the top line," with troubles in the financial and media segments raising questions about GE's business model.
"So much for owning a diversity of businesses," he opined.
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