'Armageddon' fails to worry GE chief

General Electric Co's Jeffrey Immelt says he's prepared to steer through a financial "armageddon" that has wiped out 78 percent of GE's market value in a year and forced its first dividend cut since the Great Depression.

"You're talking to somebody that earned $18 billion last year on $183 billion in revenue, that's outperformed the S&P 500 from a revenue and earnings standpoint over the last five years," the GE chief executive officer said in a March 5 interview, his first since the dividend cut on Feb 27. "But I don't think any CEO worth his or her salt can sit back and say, it happened to everybody so it's okay."