General Electric
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The '''General Electric''' Company, or '''GE''' () is a multinational technology and services company. Going into 2005, it was the world's largest corporation in terms of market capitalization (http://screen.yahoo.com/b?mc=100000000/&b=1&z=mc&db=stocks&vw=1. It should not be confused with The General Electric Company plc, which was renamed Marconi plc in 1999.
In the 1960s, peculiarities in U.S. tax laws and accounting practices made it fashionable to assemble Conglomerate (company)|conglomerates. GE, which was a conglomerate long before the term was coined, is one of the very few corporations to achieve great success with this kind of organization.
History
In 1876, Thomas Alva Edison opened a new laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey|Menlo Park, New Jersey. Out of the laboratory was to come perhaps the most famous invention of all—a successful development of the light bulb|incandescent electric lamp. By 1890, Edison had organized his various businesses into the Edison General Electric Company.
In 1879, Elihu Thomson and E. J. Houston formed the rival Thomson-Houston Company. It merged with various companies and was later led by Charles A. Coffin, a former shoe manufacturer from Lynn, Massachusetts. Mergers with competitors and the patent rights owned by each company put them into dominant positions in the electrical industry. As businesses expanded, it became increasingly difficult for either company to produce complete electrical installations relying solely on their own technology. In 1892, these two major companies combined, in a merger arranged by financier J. P. Morgan, to form the General Electric Company, with its headquarters in Schenectady, New York.
In 1896, General Electric was one of the Dow Jones Industrial Average#History|original 12 companies listed on the newly-formed Dow Jones Industrial Average. GE is the only one that remains today.
The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was founded by GE and American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) in 1919 to further international radio. General Electric was one of the eight major computer companies (with IBM - the largest, Burroughs, Scientific Data Systems, Control Data Corporation, Honeywell, RCA and UNIVAC) through most of the 1960s. GE had an extensive line of general purpose and special purpose computers. Among them were the GE-200 series|GE 200, GE 400, and GE-600 series|GE 600 series general purpose computers, the GE 4010, GE 4020, and GE 4060 real time process control computers, and the Datanet 30 message switching computer. A Datanet 600 computer was designed, but never sold. It has been said that GE got into the computer manufacturing business because in the 1950's they were the largest user of computers outside of the United States federal government. In 1970 GE sold its computer division to Honeywell.
In 1986, GE re-acquired RCA, primarily for the NBC television network. The rest was sold to various companies, including Bertelsmann and Thomson SA|Thomson.
In 2004, GE bought the television and movie assets of Vivendi Universal and became the third largest media conglomerate in the world. The new company was named NBC Universal. Also in 2004, GE completed the spinoff of most of its life insurance|life and mortgage insurance assets into an independent company, Genworth Financial, based in Richmond, Virginia. In that same year, GE also acquired the credit card unit of the department store Dillard's for $1.25 billion.
In 2005, General Electric bought the financial assets of the Economy of Canada|Canadian airplane manufacturer Bombardier for $1.4 billion http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000082&sid=aeIc.zt1tBbc
Today
GE is an enormous multinational industrial company headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut. The company describes itself as composed of a number of primary business units or "businesses." Each "business" is itself a vast enterprise, any of which would, even as a standalone company, rank in the Fortune 500. The list of GE businesses varies over time as the result of acquisitions, divestitures and reorganizations.
Access Distribution
GE Advanced Materials
GE Capital IT Solutions
GE Capital Rail Services
GE Commercial Aviation Services|GECAS
GE Commercial Finance
GE Consumer & Industrial
GE Consumer Finance
GE Energy
GE Engine Services, Inc.
GE Equipment Services
GE Fanuc Automation North America, Inc.
GE Financial Assurance Holdings, Inc.
GE Franchise Finance Corporation
GE Global Research
GE Healthcare
GE Infrastructure
GE Insurance
GE Money
GE Osmonics
GE SeaCo SRL
GE Security
GE Small Business Finance Corporation
GE Supply
GE Transportation
General Electric Mortgage Insurance Corporation
Global Nuclear Fuel - Japan Co., Ltd.
HPSC, Inc.
Instrumentarium|Instrumentarium Corporation
MRA Systems, Inc.
NBC Universal|NBC Universal, Inc.
Transport International Pool Inc.
WMC Mortgage Corp.
Through these businesses, GE participates in a wide variety of markets including the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, lighting, industrial automation, medical imaging equipment, motors, railway locomotives, aircraft jet engine, aviation services and materials such as plastics, silicones and abrasives. It was co-founder and is 80% owner (with Vivendi Universal) of National Broadcasting Company|NBC Universal, the National Broadcasting Company. Through GE Commercial Finance, GE Consumer Finance, GE Equipment Services, and GE Insurance it offers a range of financial services as well. It has a presence in over 100 countries.
Interestingly, over half of GE's revenue is derived from financial services, ostensibly making it a financial company with a manufacturing arm. It is also one of the largest lenders in countries other than the United States, such as Japan. Even though the first wave of conglomerates (such as ITT, Ling-Temco-Vought, Tenneco, etc) fell by the wayside by the mid-1980s, in the late 1990s, another wave (consisting of Westinghouse Electric Corporation|Westinghouse, Tyco International|Tyco, and others) tried and failed to emulate GE's success.
Germanotta, Jeffrey (William Blair & Company, L.L.C.)
Cornell, Robert (Lehman Brothers)
Parent, Nicole (Credit Suisse First Boston)
Dray, Deane (Goldman Sachs)
Borazon
Lexan
List of assets owned by General Electric
MOOSE
Rank and yank
External links
http://www.ge.com/Data
http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/10/10634.html
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