From Blogging Stocks:
General Electric (NYSE:GE), which reports earnings tomorrow, has indicated that it may spin-off its weakest divisions -- the firm's consumer and industrial units. No one cared, and the stock did not move. The action would not be enough, nearly enough to pull GE away from its multi-year lows.What investors would really like to see is GE broken into little pieces, the smaller the better. The only growing and hardy business that GE has now is its huge infrastructure operation. It would make a nice stand-alone company.
The unit that investors most want to see GE kick out the door is NBC Universal, a mismatch with all of GE's other businesses....MORE
From Deal Journal:
GE’s Big Sale: The End of The End of Industrial America
2008, the year of capitulation.
It has been decades in the making. One need only look back at The Wall Street Journal of 1984, when a feature article on Cleveland’s troubles illustrated the broader “decline of smokestack America.”
Companies like General Electric and General Motors behaved accordingly, pushing deeper into the financial sector, making loans and writing mortgages. The GE of 2008 is a far different animal than the GE of 1984, as it well should be.
But some things were hard to let go. GE’s refrigerators. GM’s Pontiac. Or even Motorola’s telephone-network equipment. These were the family heirlooms, the vaunted picture of great-grandma and grandpa above the mantle.
This year shows, though, that this is the moment for finally letting go. All these companies are trying to, or are likely to, dispose of these businesses in some way....MORE
