NEW YORK — Industrial conglomerate General Electric Co. on Friday reported a decline in third-quarter profit, but strong performances from its core units helped the company top Wall Street expectations.
General Electric has been making a push to focus on industrial businesses — making large, complicated equipment for other companies — and shrinking its other businesses that focus on finance. The largest change involves selling most of GE Capital’s assets, along with $ 26.5 billion in real estate assets.
The Fairfield, Connecticut-based company said profit fell 29 percent to $ 2.51 billion, or 25 cents per share. Meanwhile, revenue fell 1 percent to $ 31.68 billion.
Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs and to account for discontinued operations, came to 32 cents per share. That topped Wall Street expectations, with the average estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research for earnings of 26 cents per share.
The industrial conglomerate posted revenue of $ 31.68 billion in the period, also surpassing Street forecasts. Eleven analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $ 28.67 billion.
During the quarter, the company’s power & water division saw revenue rise 1 percent, while aviation gained 5 percent, transportation gained 3 percent and appliances gained 8 percent.
In a statement, Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt said the company’s exit plan for GE Capital is ahead of plan. Including the recently announced sale of $ 30 billion in commercial lending assets, the company has $ 126 billion in total signed deals to date, he said.
GE shares have climbed 11 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has dropped roughly 2 percent. The stock has increased 15 percent in the last 12 months. Oil and gas revenue fell 16 percent, weighed down by lower oil prices.
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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on GE at http://www.zacks.com/ap/GE
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Keywords: General Electric, Earnings Report, Priority Earnings
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