A culture that disdained bad news contributed to overoptimistic forecasts and botched strategies
Jeffrey Immelt, the longtime boss at General Electric Co. , was a polished presenter who held court each year at a waterfront resort off Sarasota, Fla., where industrial executives and Wall Street listened for his outlook on the conglomerate.
“This is a strong, very strong company,” Mr. Immelt said at the event last May.
.. GE’s precipitous fall, following years of treading water while the overall economy grew, was exacerbated, some insiders say, by what they call “success theater.”
Immelt and his top deputies projected an optimism about GE’s business and its future that didn’t always match the reality of its operations or its markets
.. “The history of GE is to selectively only provide positive information,” said Deutsche Bank analyst John Inch, who has a “sell” rating on the stock. “There is a credibility gap between what they say and the reality of what is to come.”
.. “GE itself has never been a culture where people can say, ‘I can’t.’ ”
.. GE once had the highest market value of any U.S. corporation. Its alumni have gone on to run companies such as Boeing and Chrysler.
.. Few knew just how badly ailing the American icon was. Even GE’s board didn’t realize the depth of problems in the biggest division, GE Power, until months after directors had replaced Mr. Immelt
.. A spokesman for the former CEO pointed to his decision to purchase $8 million worth of GE shares in 2016 and 2017. That included 100,000 shares in mid-May at a price roughly twice today’s.
.. But Mr. Immelt didn’t like hearing bad news, said several executives who worked with him, and didn’t like delivering bad news, either. He wanted people to make their sales and financial targets and thought he could make the numbers, too, they said.
.. Over the past three years, GE spent more than $29 billion on share repurchases, at an average price of almost $30, twice the current level. That included billions of dollars spent less than a year before GE suddenly found itself strapped for cash last fall.
.. Trian Fund Management LP, which invested $2.5 billion in GE in 2015, wanted it to buy back even more stock. The activist investor urged the company to borrow $20 billion for repurchases (which it didn’t do), based on a belief that the profits Mr. Immelt was promising would send the stock soaring when they arrived.
.. Instead, at Mr. Immelt’s retirement in August the stock was below its level when he took over 16 years earlier. Including dividends, GE gained 8% with Mr. Immelt at the helm, while the S&P 500 rose 214%. Since he stepped down, the stock has lost about 43%, erasing almost $94 billion in market value
.. Instead of $2 a share GE now projects $1 to $1.07.
.. Several directors discussed in November whether the entire board should be fired
.. Jack Welch, delivered steady profit growth and sent shares soaring in the 1980s and ’90s by striking deals and aggressively slashing costs and jobs. Mr. Welch also built up a huge lending business called GE Capital that for years generated outsize profits—but nearly sank the company during the financial crisis on Mr. Immelt’s watch.
.. Results were strong at two of GE’s big units, aviation and health care (medical equipment).
.. Acquiring companies that help drillers pump and transport fuel, he had GE spend more than $14 billion over 10 years, most of it based on higher oil prices than today’s.
.. Mr. Immelt’s optimism was part of the problem, according to some people close to the situation. They said he told the board that management had identified risks in the power business, yet downplayed them. The probability and risk were way off, one said.
.. Lisa Davis, the U.S. chief of Siemens, said the German company’s executives “have seen this decline coming for the last several years.” So Siemens had reduced its capacity in its power business, she said, while GE bought more.
.. According to former executives, the upgrades meant lower service fees for customers, in exchange for one-time upgrade costs, meaning that future sales were being pulled forward.