Summary
- The stock price of General Electric is down 34 percent since Larry Culp became CEO while the S&P 500 index has risen 2 percent.
- One year after Mr. Culp took over he finally informed his top officers what his vision was for General Electric.
- And, what Mr. Culp has worked on seems to have little relationship with what is going on in the corporate world, especially in the world of the "new" Modern Corporation.
Last month, General Electric’s (NYSE:GE) CEO called GE’s top officers to New York City and told them… his vision for the company.
Note: “It was the first time Mr. Culp… laid out his vision to the executives,” writes Thomas Gryta in the Wall Street Journal.
I must admit that I have been critical of Mr. Culp right from the start of his tenure as CEO of General Electric Co.
In his first appearance in public following his appointment, he did not address the major issues facing General Electric and he put forward no vision of what the future GE would look like.
Mr. Culp gave GE executives and GE shareholders no picture of what he had in store for the company.
To me (I have successfully completed three corporate turnarounds in my career), this was inexcusable.
In the year that Mr. Culp has led the company, I have continually written about this shortcoming and attributed the lack of change in the company and the poor performance of the company’s stock price partly to this failure.
GE’s stock price was just over $13.00 per share in early October 2018, just when Mr. Culp took over his current position, and by the middle of December 2018, the price had dropped to $6.50.
Since then, GE's stock has risen, but only to $8.56 where it closed on Monday, a 34.0 percent year-over-year decline.
The S&P 500 stock index was around 2,880 at the beginning of October 2018 and closed on Monday at 2,938, showing a 2.0 percent rise, year over year.
It appears as if the investment community doesn’t believe he is doing much of a job.
