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Post by BearClause on Nov 13, 2017 23:55:14 GMT -5
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Post by Mocha on Nov 14, 2017 0:33:17 GMT -5
One of the reasons GE's lighting business is not as profitable is the advent of LED lightbulbs. LED lightbulbs have a much longer life than incandescent and fluorescent bulbs, so consumers are not replacing or buying them as often.
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Post by BuckysHeat on Nov 14, 2017 0:36:37 GMT -5
Under Jeff Immelt, GE did not do well and has been steadily losing for at least a decade. Now that he is gone Flannery is working on a restructuring plan to get the company back to profitability. Immelt did not leave 2 months before he was supposed to retire because his replacement was ready, there were other reasons for his sudden departure no matter what the company line says.
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Post by Sorry Ass Sal on Nov 14, 2017 1:33:43 GMT -5
One of the reasons GE's lighting business is not as profitable is the advent of LED lightbulbs. LED lightbulbs have a much longer life than incandescent and fluorescent bulbs, so consumers are not replacing or buying them as often. One of my graduate professors talked about this. He believes there is very long lasting bulb technology, but why make a product that will put you out of business.
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Post by BearClause on Nov 14, 2017 1:43:43 GMT -5
One of the reasons GE's lighting business is not as profitable is the advent of LED lightbulbs. LED lightbulbs have a much longer life than incandescent and fluorescent bulbs, so consumers are not replacing or buying them as often. Someone at GE invented the compact fluorescent though. However, I guess part of it was that GE was late to the LED business. And they don't really make them either. They only seem to resell stuff from other manufacturers, although I understand they have a commercial lighting division that might develop stuff like the control electronics.
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Post by BearClause on Nov 14, 2017 1:51:35 GMT -5
One of the reasons GE's lighting business is not as profitable is the advent of LED lightbulbs. LED lightbulbs have a much longer life than incandescent and fluorescent bulbs, so consumers are not replacing or buying them as often. One of my graduate professors talked about this. He believes there is very long lasting bulb technology, but why make a product that will put you out of business. Isn't that why Kodak shelved their digital photography technology and went late into the digital photography business once it seemed like it would take off? I heard they were extremely worried about losing their extremely profitable film business and let other companies in when they could have dominated with such a huge head start. I remember when I heard about the first blue LED, which is basically what allowed white LED technology to work. It seemed somewhat insignificant back in the mid-90s. Even compact fluorescents didn't seem all that great when I could buy a GE Soft-White 4-pack for $1.25.
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Post by ironhammer on Nov 14, 2017 2:06:14 GMT -5
So GE is planning to stop being a conglomerate? Conventional bulbs...ok, that is a sunset industry being replaced by LED technology. I understand selling that. But the transportation business? Last time I checked, locomotives are still used to haul freight trains, marine diesels is still the predominant form of engine driving ship and boats. Seems rather questionable to sell off that big chunk of the company. Are their locomotive products now less competitive (unlikely, since the GE Evolution Series is selling pretty well)? Is that division being mismanaged (not really, there are no mass firings/layoffs there)?. Hmmm....I suppose in the short-term, selling off these key assets will improve the bottom line for the shareholders, but in the long-term, I'm not really sure this will help the company much.
At least GE Aviation is still around. That is a core component of the company, jet engines such as the CF-6, GE-90 and CFM-56 still powers a large percentage of the commercial airliner fleet. In fact, GE has a sweetheart deal with Boeing as the exclusive engine supplier for the 777-300ER and the upcoming 777-X series of airliners. If GE sells its aviation business, then GE will be in very real trouble as a business.
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Post by mikegarrison on Nov 14, 2017 3:20:35 GMT -5
Back in the day when Neutron Jack ran GE, he famously declared that every business GE was in, it would have to be either #1 or #2 in that US market (or #3 in the world market). Whether it was jet engines or refrigerators or lightbulbs, if he couldn't grow the business to be dominant than he cut it completely.
Sounds like maybe they are going back to that philosophy.
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Post by ironhammer on Nov 14, 2017 5:35:33 GMT -5
Back in the day when Neutron Jack ran GE, he famously declared that every business GE was in, it would have to be either #1 or #2 in that US market (or #3 in the world market). Whether it was jet engines or refrigerators or lightbulbs, if he couldn't grow the business to be dominant than he cut it completely. Sounds like maybe they are going back to that philosophy. But their train business remains highly competitive. Their GE Evolution series of locomotives are outselling its GM competitors. Does not make sense to sell it according to Walch's rules. Seems more like a short-term measure to boost share values and please the shareholders, although in the long-term, losing the locomotive business may not necessarily be good for GE.
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Post by mikegarrison on Nov 14, 2017 7:40:12 GMT -5
Back in the day when Neutron Jack ran GE, he famously declared that every business GE was in, it would have to be either #1 or #2 in that US market (or #3 in the world market). Whether it was jet engines or refrigerators or lightbulbs, if he couldn't grow the business to be dominant than he cut it completely. Sounds like maybe they are going back to that philosophy. But their train business remains highly competitive. Their GE Evolution series of locomotives are outselling its GM competitors. Does not make sense to sell it according to Walch's rules. Seems more like a short-term measure to boost share values and please the shareholders, although in the long-term, losing the locomotive business may not necessarily be good for GE. Well, the whole point back then was to leverage market share into profitability. From what I have read, the units that GE is proposing to sell are their less-profitable units. Anyway, it's not my business anymore. I stopped working for them back in 1990.
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Post by BearClause on Nov 14, 2017 11:03:57 GMT -5
Back in the day when Neutron Jack ran GE, he famously declared that every business GE was in, it would have to be either #1 or #2 in that US market (or #3 in the world market). Whether it was jet engines or refrigerators or lightbulbs, if he couldn't grow the business to be dominant than he cut it completely. Sounds like maybe they are going back to that philosophy. But their train business remains highly competitive. Their GE Evolution series of locomotives are outselling its GM competitors. Does not make sense to sell it according to Walch's rules. Seems more like a short-term measure to boost share values and please the shareholders, although in the long-term, losing the locomotive business may not necessarily be good for GE. GM sold off EMD over a decade ago. Caterpillar owns them now. The freight locomotive business is certainly dominated by GE. Passenger rail is different though. I don’t believe they’ve delivered a passenger locomotive in over 15 years. Probably not much money in it. Amtrak has a fleet dominated by the Genesis Series. They do look odd next to a Dash-8 though.
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Post by BearClause on Nov 14, 2017 12:09:56 GMT -5
So GE is planning to stop being a conglomerate? Conventional bulbs...ok, that is a sunset industry being replaced by LED technology. I understand selling that. But the transportation business? Last time I checked, locomotives are still used to haul freight trains, marine diesels is still the predominant form of engine driving ship and boats. Seems rather questionable to sell off that big chunk of the company. Are their locomotive products now less competitive (unlikely, since the GE Evolution Series is selling pretty well)? Is that division being mismanaged (not really, there are no mass firings/layoffs there)?. Hmmm....I suppose in the short-term, selling off these key assets will improve the bottom line for the shareholders, but in the long-term, I'm not really sure this will help the company much. Their consumer products were basically just prestige businesses that keep the name out there even if they were mature businesses with tiny profit margins. They're tiny compared to their industrial divisions. Strangely enough, if they sell them the name will still be out there under license. Even so, what's a more iconic product than Edison's lightbulb? While not all CFLs (which are probably dying as a market) are shaped to look like a traditional light bulb, it's easiest to sheath LED arrays in that familiar shape. I suppose transportation could be at a state where the profits are relatively minor. Most newer versions are more evolutionary than revolutionary. The Genesis was state of the art but that's a 20 year old design and they don't seem to be interested in that market any more. I mean - how much can diesel engines be developed? Still - the diesel-electric locomotive fits right into GE's other businesses. It's basically a diesel generator on wheels.
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Post by BearClause on Nov 14, 2017 17:25:45 GMT -5
One of the reasons GE's lighting business is not as profitable is the advent of LED lightbulbs. LED lightbulbs have a much longer life than incandescent and fluorescent bulbs, so consumers are not replacing or buying them as often. Just reading more stuff. Apparently GE (in one form or another) invented much of the important electric lighting technology in history. Obviously there was Edison's incandescent bulb, even though it wasn't necessarily the first although it was practical because it didn't cost a fortune (like with platinum wires) and could generally last 1000 hours. They came up with practical tungsten filaments and fluorescent lighting as well as the first visible light LED.
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Post by Mocha on Nov 14, 2017 18:05:31 GMT -5
GE was also facing a cash crunch, which is why they reduced their dividend. They had to sell some of their businesses to raise money.
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Post by BearClause on Nov 14, 2017 18:38:58 GMT -5
GE was also facing a cash crunch, which is why they reduced their dividend. They had to sell some of their businesses to raise money. I'm not necessarily sure that selling some of these businesses would be that great an idea from the standpoint of the purchaser. Home appliances did make sense since the manufacturing ecosystem is self-contained and they sold that division to an appliance manufacturer. Lighting isn't really all that tied into their other business. However, the transportation and power divisions are linked by their diesel engine and generator technology. I guess "synergy" is an overused phrase, but in this case it's pretty accurate. I'm kind of curious about GE's gas-turbine locomotives. In that case being a conglomerate meant they could leverage expertise in one field to a different product.
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