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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (39297)	4/25/2001 7:38:17 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

Recession??or weak economy....General Electric Co. 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. (NYSE:HON - news), currently under review by European competition officials, should be completed by July. ''We have some work to do with the European Union (news - web sites), 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 (news - web sites) trading on Wednesday, GE shares gained $1.82, or about 4 percent, to $47.81