Boston’s biggest company is going to get considerably smaller under a turnaround plan that new General Electric Co. chief executive John Flannery spelled out Monday.
Flannery billed his changes as a reinvention aimed at putting GE back on a growth track, but he stopped short of making more dramatic changes that some on Wall Street had demanded.
Most of the storied conglomerate, whose roots extend to Thomas Edison, will remain intact, and the effect on Boston will be minimal. A small Boston-based enterprise that focuses on energy efficiency will probably be eliminated, however.
At his first big presentation to investors since taking the helm in August, Flannery said GE will focus on three key industries: aviation, including jet engines; energy equipment and services; and health care products such as MRI machines. It will divest a number of businesses, shrink its board of directors, and cut its dividend in half, just the second reduction since the Great Depression.
By Jon Chesto
Source: Boston Globe
The company plans to pour more than $500 million in additional funds into its active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) plant in Raheen, Limerick County, the country’s Industrial Development Agency (IDA) said. The new funding brings the company’s total investment in the site to 927 million euros ($1 billion).
“If in 2005 someone told you that two-thirds of our industry would be driven on the R&D side by emerging biopharma—it would be unthinkable. If one were to project that trend forward, what it would suggest is that we could have a day when we do this talk, say in 2027 or 2028, where 80% of the industry’s pipeline is coming from emerging companies.”
The German healthcare and agrochemicals giant told Reuters that in future its pharma pipeline will focus on cardiovascular disease, neurology, rare diseases and immunology, while de-emphasizing women’s health, a field it first focused on with the acquisition of the former women’s health specialist Schering in 2006.
