Friday, April 20, 2012

General Electric profits hit by one-off charges

Burlington Northern Santa Fe GE diesel train engines

US industrial conglomerate General Electric (GE) has reported a fall in first-quarter profits.

The firm made $3.03bn (£1.88bn) in the three months to the end of March, down 10% on the £3.36bn made in the same period last year.

This year's results were hit by one-off charges, including a $200m charge related to an Irish mortgage business.

Taking out those costs, GE made $3.6bn in the first quarter up 1% and more than analysts expected.

GE chief executive, Jeff Immelt said: "Today's results demonstrate that we are achieving industrial growth and GE Capital continues to grow stronger.

"This quarter we witnessed broad-based strength in orders across all our infrastructure businesses and in both equipment and services," he said.

GE is the world's biggest maker of jet engines, but is strong in other industrial areas, including equipment for power stations and transport infrastructure.

"If you look into the details, that beat [performance above analyst expectations] came at the expense of human capital, and we're still not seeing the growth we had experienced in previous quarters," said Todd Schoenberger, managing director at Landcolt Trading.

"In addition, there's a curbing of enthusiasm for the upcoming quarters because of the potential slowdown in Europe and possibly China."



Source & Image : BBC

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