GE Card

The General Electric Company is a multinational American technology and services conglomerate incorporated in the State of New York. In terms of market capitalization as of September 30, 2008, GE is the world's tenth largest company.

In 1896, General Electric was one of the original 12 companies listed on the newly-formed Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The company describes itself as composed of a number of primary business units or "businesses." Each "business" is itself a vast enterprise, many of which would, even as a standalone company, rank in the Fortune 500. The list of GE businesses varies over time as the result of acquisitions, divestitures and reorganizations.

In 2005 GE launched its "Ecomagination" initiative in an attempt to position itself as a "green" company. GE is currently one of the biggest players in the wind power industry, and it is also developing new environment-friendly products such as hybrid locomotives, desalination and water reuse solutions, and photovoltaic cells. The company has set goals for its subsidiaries to lower their

On Dec 12, 2008, GE announced job cuts as well as a restructuring of its finance unit, warning that fourth quarter results will be at the low end of previous projections.

On Feb 20, 2009, GE announced extra 4,000 job cuts bringing the total up to 12,000 as well as a restructuring of its production and repair units, warning that first quarter results will be lower than previous projections.

Brand. General Electric has the fourth most recognized brand in the world, worth almost $49 billion. CEO Jeffrey Immelt had a set of changes in the presentation of the brand commissioned in 2004, after he took the reins as chairman, to unify the diversified businesses of GE. The changes included a new corporate color palette, small modifications to the GE Logo, a new customized font (GE Inspira), and a new slogan, "imagination at work" replacing the longtime slogan "we bring good things to life", composed by David Lucas. The standard requires many headlines to be lowercased and adds visual "white space" to documents and advertising to promote an open and approachable company. The changes were designed by Wolff Olins and are used extensively on GE's marketing, literature and website.The value of the brand is reinforced by ownership of two letter domain ge.com. The domain was registered on August 5, 1986. General Electric is one of the few corporations worldwide to own a two letter domain name. The brand is also reflected by the GE New York Stock Exchange ticker symbol.

General Electric is also very focused on the protection of its brand. In 2009 it asked Australian musician Edward Guglielmino to change his logo, a parody of the "GE" logo.

Businesses. GE's divisions include GE Capital (including GE Commercial Finance and GE Money and GE Consumer Finance), GE Technology InfrastructureGE Aviation,the former Smiths Aerospace and GE Healthcare), GE Energy Infrastructure, and NBC Universal, an entertainment company. (including

Through these businesses, GE participates in a wide variety of markets including the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity (eg. Nuclear, gas and solar), lighting, industrial automation, medical imaging equipment, motors, railway locomotives, aircraft jet engines, and aviation services. It co-founded and is 80% owner (with Vivendi) of NBC Universal, the National Broadcasting Company. Through GE Commercial Finance, GE Consumer Finance, GE Equipment Services, and GE Insurance it offers a range of financial services as well. It has a presence in over 100 countries.

General Electric gauges to control a railway locomotive.

Since over half of GE's revenue is derived from financial services, it is arguably a financial company with a manufacturing arm. It is also one of the largest lenders in countries other than the United States, such as Japan. Even though the first wave of conglomerates (such as ITT, Ling-Temco-Vought, Tenneco, etc) fell by the wayside by the mid-1980s, in the late 1990s, another wave (consisting of Westinghouse, Tyco, and others) tried and failed to emulate GE's success.

It was announced in May 2008 that General Electric would auction off its appliances business for an expected sale of $5-8 billion.

The Finnish RFI filter firm DICRO Oy was founded in 1987 and bought out an older rival RFI filter firm named GE Procond Oy on February 13, 2006, which was renamed to Procond Oy and until then part of General Electric, but now may be sold off too.

Corporate recognition. In 2004, GE was named number one company for employers and employees on the Forbes 500 Global Player list. Over the years GE has received several awards honoring them for their accomplishments, values and reputation:

• In Fortune Magazine's 2005 "Global Most Admired Companies" list, GE ranked first overall. (February 2005)

•  In Fortune Magazine's 2006 "America's Most Admired Companies" list, GE ranked first overall. (March 2006)

• GE was named to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index as one of the world's leaders in environmental, social and economic programs.

• GE ranked ninth on Fortune Magazine's "50 Most Desirable MBA Employers" list. (April 2004)

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Environmental record and initiative. General Electric has a history of large-scale air and water pollution. Based on year 2000 data,[24] researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute listed the corporation as the fourth-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States, with more than 4.4 million pounds per year (2,000 Tonnes) of toxic chemicals released into the air.

In 1983, New York State Attorney General Robert Abrams filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York to compel G.E. to pay for the cleanup of what was claimed to be more than 100,000 tons of chemicals dumped (legally, at the time) from their plant in Waterford. In 1999, the company agreed to pay a $250 million settlement in connection with claims it polluted the Housatonic River and other sites with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other hazardous substances.

From approximately 1947 to 1977, GE discharged as much as 1.3 million pounds of PCBs from its capacitor manufacturing plants at the Hudson Falls and Fort Edward facilities into the Hudson River. Spending millions over many years, GE fought a media and political battle to avoid cleaning up the river: GE attacked the Superfund law in court, and launched an extensive media campaign to refute the benefits of cleaning up the river, claiming that dredging the river would actually stir up PCBs. In 2002, GE was ordered to clean up a 40-mile (64 km) stretch of the Hudson River it had contaminated.

In 2003, acting on concerns that the plan proposed by GE did not "provide for adequate protection of public health and the environment," the United States Environmental Protection Agency issued a unilateral administrative order for the company to "address cleanup at the GE site" in Rome, Georgia, also contaminated with PCBs.

In May 2005 GE announced the launch of a program called "Ecomagination," intended, in the words of CEO Jeffrey Immelt "to develop tomorrow's solutions such as solar energy, hybrid locomotives, fuel cells, lower-emission aircraft engines, lighter and stronger durable materials, efficient lighting, and water purification technology,"prompting the The New York Times to observe that, "while General Electric's increased emphasis on clean technology will probably result in improved products and benefit its bottom line, Mr. Immelt's credibility as a spokesman on national environmental policy is fatally flawed because of his company's intransigence in cleaning up its own toxic legacy."

GE has said that it will invest $1.4bn in cleantech research and development in 2008 as part of its Ecomagination initiative. As of October 2008, the scheme had resulted in 70 green products being brought to market, ranging from halogen lamps to biogas engines. In 2007, GE raised the annual revenue target for its Ecomagination initiative from $20bn in 2010 to $25bn following positive market response to its new product lines.

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Source: GE Official website & Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia.