General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) was an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892 and incorporated in the state of New York and headquartered in Boston. The company had several divisions, including aerospace, energy, healthcare, and finance.
Company type | Public |
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Traded as |
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ISIN | US3696043013 (2021–2024) |
Industry | Conglomerate |
Predecessor | Edison General Electric Company Thomson-Houston Electric Company |
Founded | April 15, 1892 in Schenectady, New York, US |
Founders |
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Defunct | April 2, 2024 |
Fate | Spin-off of assets and rebrand to GE Aerospace |
Successors | |
Headquarters | One Financial Center Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people |
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Revenue | US$68 billion (2023) |
US$9 billion (2023) | |
Net income | US$9 billion (2023) |
Total assets | US$163 billion (2023) |
Total equity | US$29 billion (2023) |
Number of employees | 125,000 (2023) |
Subsidiaries | |
Website | www |
Footnotes / references |
In 2020, GE ranked among the Fortune 500 as the 33rd largest firm in the United States by gross revenue. In 2023, the company was ranked 64th in the Forbes Global 2000. In 2011, GE ranked among the Fortune 20 as the 14th most profitable company, but later very severely underperformed the market (by about 75%) as its profitability collapsed. Two employees of GE—Irving Langmuir (1932) and Ivar Giaever (1973)—have been awarded the Nobel Prize.
Following the Great Recession of the late 2000s, General Electric began selling off various divisions and assets, including its appliances and financial capital divisions, under Jeff Immelt's leadership as CEO. John Flannery, Immelt's replacement in 2017, further divested General Electric's assets in locomotives and lighting, in order to focus the company more on aviation. After restrictions on air travel during the COVID-19 pandemic caused General Electric's revenue to fall significantly in 2020, GE's final CEO Larry Culp announced in November 2021 that General Electric was to be broken up into three separate, public companies—GE Aerospace, GE HealthCare, and GE Vernova—by 2024. The new companies are respectively focused on aerospace, healthcare, and energy. GE HealthCare's spin-off was finalized on January 4, 2023. This was followed by the spin-off of GE's portfolio of energy businesses on April 2, 2024, into GE Vernova. Following these transactions, General Electric Company changed its name to GE Aerospace, pivoted to aviation, and ceased to exist as a conglomerate.