Welch Sees Record Year for GE
April 25, 2001 5:14:00 PM ET
ATLANTA (Reuters) - General Electric Co. (GE) Chairman Jack Welch told
shareholders here on Wednesday that he was confident that 2001 would be a
record year for the world's largest company.
Welch, sounding an upbeat note at his last annual meeting as GE chairman,
said GE would continue to boost earnings and profit margins despite a
challenging economic climate.
``We'll deliver earnings growth at a time when many are delivering earnings
warnings,'' Welch said. GE, whose businesses range from aerospace to
financial services and broadcasting, recently posted a 16 percent jump in
first-quarter profit on record revenue of $30.49 billion.
``We are confident GE will have another record year in 2001,'' Welch said.
GE reported net income of $12.7 billion on revenues of nearly $130 billion for
2000.
Welch is due to step down as GE chairman at the end of the year.
Welch said digitization, moving functions to the Web, was a major way for GE
to improve its competitive position. He said GE would sell $20 billion in goods
and services online this year, up from $8 billion in 2000. He said GE would
boost its spending on information technology by 10 to 15 percent this year.
Welch also said the company's proposed acquisition of Honeywell International
Inc. (HON), currently under review by European competition officials, should be
completed by July. ''We have some work to do with the European Union, to be
sure that we resolve all their concerns,'' Welch said.
He added that Honeywell, a maker of aerospace and building products, was
expected to contribute more than 10 cents a share to GE's earnings in the first
full year of the acquisition.
Aside from business operations, Welch talked about qualities such as adjusting
to change and integrity, and often mentioned his designated successor, Jeffrey
Immelt.
``I am convinced more and more every day that the best idea I have had in the
past 20 years was to choose Jeff Immelt as your next Chairman and CEO,''
Welch said.
Seven shareowner proposals, including one seeking a GE report on lobbying
and public-relations expenditures related to polychlorinated biphenyls, a
carcinogen known as PCB, failed to gain enough votes to pass. Decades ago,
GE factories discharged PCBs into New York's Hudson River and other areas.
Welch said GE opposes a current government plan to dredge toxic waste from
parts of the Hudson. ``The logistics of the process are nightmarish,'' he said.
Little was said of Welch's expected departure as GE chairman until the end of
the meeting, when the Rev. Douglas Moore of Washington, D.C., called Welch
one of his heroes, along with Martin Luther King Jr.
``Both of you have added substantively to the American spirit, to the American
enterprise,'' Moore said.
In New York Stock Exchange trading on Wednesday, GE shares gained $1.82,
or about 4 percent, to $47.81. |
