GE reports better-than-expected Q4 revenue, shares surge

NEW YORK - Shares of US industrial giant General Electric (GE) jumped on Thursday after the company posted stronger-than-anticipated fourth-quarter revenue.

The company on Thursday reported its latest quarterly revenue of $33.28 billion, 5 percent higher than the same period in 2017. The reading edged out the $32.6 billion expected in an analyst survey by Refinitiv.

"Our strategy is clear: deleverage our balance sheet and strengthen our businesses, starting with Power," said GE Chairman and CEO H. Lawrence Culp in a statement. "To do this, we are improving execution, customer focus, and how we set priorities across GE."

"We have more work to do, but I'm encouraged by the changes we're making to strengthen GE and create value," Culp added.

GE stock surged as much as 18 percent at the highs on Thursday in heavy trading volume and rose 11.65 percent to close at $10.16 per share, cracking the $10 mark for the first time since November. The stock has been up more than 34 percent so far this year.

The company delivered adjusted fourth-quarter earnings of 17 cents per share, missing the Wall Street estimates of 22 cents per share, and a 60 percent plunge from a year earlier.

GE was able to retain or generate about 10 billion in cash over the quarter mainly thanks to its dividend cut and the sale of parts of its stake in oil services group Baker Hughes, said the company.

The industrial giant also announced it had reached a settlement with the US Department of Justice regarding its former subprime-mortgage business for $1.5 billion, a figure that matches the amount the company set aside for liability in the probe last April.

GE's struggling power unit declined further, with revenues suffering a 25 percent year-over-year dip to $6.76 billion since the business "was negatively impacted by continued execution and operational issues."

Culp, the new helmsman who was appointed on October 1, 2018, had said the priorities in his first 100 days were positioning GE businesses to win, reorganizing GE Power, and accelerating deleveraging.

The company's units of aviation, health care and Baker Hughes oil and gas saw profits rise in the quarter. Its aviation business posted revenue of $8.5 billion, surging 21 percent from a year earlier.

GE was one among the worst-performing S&P 500 stocks in 2018, down 56.6 percent. The company spun off several businesses last year to generate cash and shrink its footprint.