GE: Big Earnings Miss
April 11th, 2008Via: Bloomberg:
General Electric Co. reported its first decline in quarterly profit since 2003, missing analysts’ estimates with a 12 percent drop in earnings as a freeze in credit markets blocked asset sales and forced it to write down the value of investments.
The world’s third-largest company by market value fell as much as 12 percent, the most since 1987, in New York trading after GE also cut the forecast that Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt once told investors was “in the bag” for 2008.
“We hate disappointing investors,” Immelt said in an interview on the company-owned CNBC television network. “It’s not part of the company. It’s not part of the culture. We take accountability for that.”
General Electric’s miss came without warning as it was forced to cut the value of some securities in the last two weeks of March as capital markets seized up, Immelt said. That also prevented GE from selling some finance assets. GE put its U.S. credit card business and Japanese consumer finance units up for sale last year. The health-care unit also trailed expectations.
