A culture that disdained bad news contributed to overoptimistic forecasts and botched strategies....
By Thomas Gryta, Joann S. Lublin and David Benoit
Feb. 21, 2018 11:37 a.m. ET
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Jeffrey Immelt, the longtime boss at General Electric Co. GE -0.07% , 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.
On that Wednesday morning, though, he looked shaky to some people in attendance, running quickly through highlights of 27 slides in the ballroom of the Resort at Longboat Key Club. He defended his long-held 2018 profit goal, an optimistic benchmark Wall Street had long abandoned.
“It’s not crap. It’s pretty good really,” he told the room, referring to GE’s recent financial performance. “Today, when I think about where the stock is compared to what the company is, it’s a mismatch.”
It was a mismatch. On that day, GE shares were trading near $28. They would go on to collapse over the next six months while the stock market set fresh records. Today, they trade below $15.
Underperforming
GE’s total shareholder return lagged the broader market under former boss Jeff Immelt.
%
300
Flannery takes over as CEO
200
S
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-jeffrey-immelts-success-theater-masked-the-rot-at-ge-1519231067