GE’s fall is an ‘opportunity for some’ while others will cry: Bob Wright
While General Electric’s (NYSE:GE) new CEO John Flannery works to turn business around, a shareholder sued the company for posting quarterly results that were “unacceptable.”
So far, GE is the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s (DJIA) worst performer of 2017. On Thursday, stocks closed below $20 a share for the first time since 2012.
Although shareholders’ long-lingering frustrations over the Boston-based company’s performance began to boil over, the former vice chairman, Bob Wright told FOX Business this may be an opportunity for investors.
“This is extremely tough. Now, if you’re General Electric’s stock holder like me, this is horrible. Down 35% this year in the longest bull market we’ve ever had, but the other side of it is, if you’re an investor, this may be an opportunity that you may not see in the future,” said the former NBC chairman to Maria Bartiromo on “Mornings with Maria.”
In Wright’s opinion, GE is a valuable company as the maker of power plants, jet engines, medical devices and other industrial equipment, but it needs to do a better job exposing value around these areas.
“These are very solid businesses, and they are not going to go away and in the world they are like number one in those areas. So they have to rally around those businesses and clean up the balance sheet, and that’s what they are doing, and that’s where the pain is coming from,” he said.
Former CEO Jeff Immelt was recently at the center of a controversy for using two private jets to fly while traveling. Although Wright would not say whether board members should step down given recent performance, he shed light on the industrial software business.
“I don’t think because of the jet, because that was several years ago… But it’s a very difficult situation to justify after all this time in trying to get a whole new face,” he said. “And I don’t know what’s happening to the software end of it—industrial software end which is [Immelt’s] whole reason to go to Boston… I think that’s happening and it’s going to be behind some of these other issues.”