Wednesday, June 17, 2015

General Electric Threatens to Leave Connecticut (GE)

Ungrateful bitches.
It was just eight short years ago that the company took the state's money in "GE gets grant to install GE solar panels on GE headquarters".*

From Middle Class Economist, June 5, 2015:

GE threatens to leave Connecticut UPDATED
A non-blogging friend has brought to my attention the fact that General Electric is threatening to move its corporate headquarters out of Connecticut in response to proposed tax increases in the state budget. The company, based in Fairfield, objects to increases in the taxes for data processing and corporate headquarters. Insurance companies Aetna and Travelers have also issued similar threats.

In GE's case in particular, this is pretty rich. The New York Times reports that GE made $14.2 billion in 2010 and received a federal tax refund of $3 billion. It is a company that touts bringing manufacturing jobs back from China but conveniently omits mentioning that the new jobs, in Louisville, pay $13/hour rather than the $22/hour they paid before they left for China. A model of corporate virtue it ain't, yet President Obama sees fit to lean on chief executive officer Jeffrey Immelt as one of his top business advisers....MORE 
*Of course the zeitgeist changed and we discovered all that Ecoimagination crap was just that, B.S. A few years later we read:
"GE's Immelt wishes he had soft-pedaled green talk" (GE)
See also:
The browning of General Electric: "Seeking a bigger role in the oil business" (GE)

These are the kind of people you have to stay away from. As I mentioned in 2014's "General Electric: ‘A Generation of Portfolio Managers Has Been Rewarded For for Staying Underweight’" (GE)"
Monday, September 10, 2001 was the day that Mr. Immelt took over at GE. The stock closed that day at a split adjusted $32.86. Today it is changing hands at $26.88.

I haven't owned the stock since '99. I was fortunate to not own this stock for the last decade-point-five. In the late '90's a very wealthy and very smart investor said to me:
"GE's phony-baloney earnings smoothing is going to have to end, it's approaching the level of a joke, in addition to violating the '33 act".
Sometimes you get lucky....
The stock closed yesterday at $27.21. Immelt is trying every financial engineering trick he can think of to get the stock back to $32.86 before he retires.
Here's betting he doesn't make it.
We have hundreds of posts on GE, use the search blog box if interested.