GE Capital BULLISH on India.
...."During his short trip lasting a little more than three days, Gary C Wendt -- 56, chairman, chief executive and veteran of G E Capital Services, the wholly owned subsidiary of General Electric Company of the USA -- generated tremendous interest among media-persons in India. So much so that even foreign correspondents turned up at a media conference held in Bombay on Tuesday as part of the launch of SBI payment cards, a joint venture between the State Bank of India and GE Caps.
Wendt has sustained an 18 per cent income growth rate for the past 10 years, making GE Caps (1997 net earnings $ 3.3 billion) as strong and famous as its parent GE. His well-documented uneasy relations with GE's CEO Jack Welch and his growth-despite-recession approach have made Wendt a corporate superhero whom that the media love to meet and chat up. His overprotective ''agents'' in India seem to know that too well, though Wendt himself appears to like being left free as a bird.
Even as his white skin turned pink and red and patchy in an overcrowded five-star lounge, Wendt retained his ability to laugh, smile, gesticulate and counter-question in the face of a deluge of queries from journalists, betraying, though, his consternation over the delay by the hotel staff in fetching a Diet Coke. Y Siva Sankar spoke to Wendt about GE Caps' experience in India...."
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