GE announced today strong fourth-quarter 2010 earnings from continuing operations (attributable to GE) of $3.9 billion, or .36 per share, up 33% from the fourth quarter of 2009. Revenues grew to $41.4 billion for the quarter, the company’s first positive growth in nine quarters.
“GE ended 2010 with three consecutive quarters of strong earnings growth,” GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt said . “Industrial segment revenue was up 4%, with Industrial organic growth of 6%. Fourth quarter orders grew 12% year-over-year, with a 20% increase in equipment and a 5% expansion in services. Importantly, overall orders in Energy Infrastructure grew 4%. Total company backlog in the quarter increased $3.1 billion to a record $175 billion.
“Strong performance at GE Capital was also encouraging,” Immelt said. “Fourth-quarter net income of $1.1 billion was up $1.0 billion from a year ago. Volume grew 30% in the quarter at good margins. Losses and impairments declined .3 billion from the third quarter of 2010 to $2.5 billion, and we saw improvement in delinquencies across the businesses.
“We continue to operate GE with discipline and rigor,” Immelt said. “Cash generated from GE Industrial operating activities totaled $4.6 billion in the quarter and $14.7 billion for the year. At yearend, we had $79 billion of consolidated cash and equivalents. Strong fourth-quarter Industrial margins (ex. NBCU) of 17.5%, up 10 bps year-over-year, reflect that GE is delivering on operations even as we increase investment in R&D, which was up 21% for the full year.”
Key Industrial wins in the quarter included more than $5.8 billion in commercial aviation service and equipment orders and over $3 billion in long-term service contracts with LAN, Cathay, COMAC and Delta, among others; more than $750 million in contracts from India’s Reliance Power for powergeneration technology to help expand the Samalkot power plant in Andhra Pradesh; agreements worth $700 million for power-generation equipment and services for the new high-efficiency Riyadh PP11 power plant in Saudi Arabia; and a $500 million contract with Saudi Aramco to supply a broad range of equipment and services for an expansion of the Shaybah gas-oil processing facilities.
“GE continued executing a balanced capital-allocation plan in the fourth quarter with strategic acquisitions that augment core Industrial capabilities,” Immelt said. “In the last 90 days of 2010: GE Healthcare completed its $580 million acquisition of Clarient, a leading player in the fast-growing molecular diagnostics sector; GE Oil & Gas announced its intent to acquire, for $1.3 billion, Wellstream Holdings PLC, a leading engineer and manufacturer of high-quality flexible pipeline products for oil and gas transportation in the subsea production industry; GE Energy announced its intended $3 billion acquisition of Dresser, Inc., a global energy infrastructure technology and service provider. Earlier this month, GE Energy also announced the proposed acquisition of Lineage Power Holdings Inc. for $520 million, which will enhance our capabilities in Smart Grid and Data Centers energy management.
“In addition, in December, we announced the second dividend increase in six months, for a total improvement of 40% versus the beginning of the year,” Immelt said. “And since restarting the share buyback program mid-year, we repurchased $1.8 billion in stock.”
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Source: GE, January 21, 2011;