General Electric
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 One Financial Center, the final headquarters of General Electric in Boston, Massachusetts | |
| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| DJIA component (until 2018) | |
| ISIN | US3696043013 (2021–2024) |
| Industry | Conglomerate |
| Predecessors |
|
| Founded | April 15, 1892 in Schenectady, New York, US |
| Founders | |
| Defunct | April 2, 2024 (original company) |
| Fate | Dissolved; assets dispersed to three independent, publicly traded companies |
| Successors |
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| Headquarters | One Financial Center, Boston, Massachusetts , United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people |
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| Revenue |  US$68 billion (2023) |
| US$9 billion (2023) | |
| 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 | |
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| 1909 | Independent Moving Pictures was founded by Carl Laemmle as the predecessor to Universal |
|---|---|
| 1912 | Universal Studios Hollywood was founded after Independent Moving merged with several smaller film studios |
| 1915 | Universal City, California, was established as the entertainment district for the Universal Studios Lot. |
| 1924 | MCA Inc. was founded by Jules Stein as a talent agency to book musicians |
| 1926 | RCA Corporation launched the NBC Radio Network, and by 1939, NBC began broadcasting on television. |
| 1934 | Decca Records America was established and would later grow to become Universal Music Group |
| 1946 | William Goetz and Leo Spitz began managing Universal Pictures, after merging International Pictures |
| 1952 | Decca Records America acquired a controlling stake in Universal Pictures |
| 1958 | MCA acquired the Universal Studios film lot and later purchased Decca Records America, and Universal Pictures in 1962 |
| 1963 | Comcast was founded as American Cable Systems by Ralph J. Roberts |
| 1973 | Decca Records America is retired as a brand and renamed to MCA Records |
| 1986 | General Electric acquired RCA Corp and dissolved the company while retaining ownership of NBC |
| 1990 | Panasonic acquired a Controlling interest in MCA, but sold it to Seagram within five years after growing costs |
| 1998 | MCA Records acquired Polygram N.V. from Philips and was renamed to Universal Music Group |
| 2000 | Seagram Entertainment was sold to Vivendi and merged with StudioCanal to become Vivendi Universal |
| 2002 | NBC acquired Telemundo while Comcast acquired AT&T Broadband |
| 2004 | Vivendi Universal was consolidated with General Electric's wholly owned NBC to form NBCUniversal, while Universal Music Group was separated |
| 2013 | Comcast closed its acquisition of NBCUniversal from General Electric |
| 2018 | Sky Group was acquired from 21st Century Fox after a bidding war |
| 2020 | Peacock was launched |
| 2026 | Majority of NBCU's cable networks were spun off into another company named Versant, while Comcast later announced it would spin-off NBCUniversal and Sky into a separate company |
General Electric Company (GE) was an American multinational conglomerate. It played a role in the development of electric power, electric light, home appliances, aviation, and medical imaging. GE was established in 1892 through the merger of Thomas Edison's Edison General Electric Company and the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, a consolidation conceived and orchestrated by financier J. P. Morgan.
Over its history, GE had multiple divisions, including aerospace, transportation, energy, healthcare, lighting, locomotives, appliances, and finance. 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. From 1986 until 2013, GE was the owner of the NBC television network through its purchase of its former subsidiary RCA before its acquisition of NBC's parent company NBCUniversal by Comcast in 2011.
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. Restrictions on air travel during the COVID-19 pandemic caused General Electric's revenue to fall significantly in 2020. Ultimately, GE's final CEO Larry Culp announced in November 2021 that General Electric was to be broken up into three separate, public companies by 2024. GE Aerospace, the aerospace company, is GE's legal successor. GE HealthCare, the health technology company, was spun off from GE in 2023. GE Vernova, the energy company, was founded when GE finalized the split. Following these transactions, GE Aerospace took the General Electric name and ticker symbols, while the old General Electric ceased to exist as a conglomerate.