General Electric Co. CEO Larry Culp said Thomas Edison, who co-founded GE over 150 years ago, would be “looking down smiling” as the company splits into three separate businesses starting Tuesday.
“Edison, at his heart, was a relentless optimist, an inventor, somebody focused on the possible and on customer need,” Culp said in an exclusive interview with Arabian Business, his first-ever in the Middle East. “I’m not sure he necessarily was wed to one corporate form or another.”
The CEO’s comments came a few days before the newly formed GE Aerospace makes its debut as an independent entity after splitting off from GE.
On April 2, the storied conglomerate will divide itself into three standalone companies focused on aviation, healthcare, and energy transition. GE Healthcare, GE Vernova, and now GE Aerospace, will become separate listed entities, marking the end of GE.
GE Healthcare already spun off last January as a standalone public company.
Culp said each of the new firms are “global leaders in their respective fields” and “better positioned to continue to lead as we go forward.”
The three-way breakup of the iconic General Electric was first announced in 2021, as the company looked to become more focused on its core aviation, healthcare, and energy businesses. Prior to the split, GE shed several non-core assets over the years, including its lighting and locomotive operations.
The breakup marks the final step in a multi-year turnaround plan Culp has led since becoming CEO in 2018. The company has reduced debt by $100 billion and decentralised operations to improve performance.
“Our investors wanted to invest in these businesses but didn’t necessarily want to invest in all of them at the same time, so that’s really how we began to work through it in the course of 2021,” he revealed.
“Later that year, you heard us go public with the conclusion that we would, in fact, affect that outcome. It would take us a couple of years, we would do it in two steps. So far, given both the response we have seen to a standalone GE Healthcare and what we know is waiting for us here just in a matter of days, both GE Aersopace and GE Vernova, we’re pleased with that decision and the way that both folks outside the company, customers, and investors, as well as people inside the company, have responded.”
Culp said the “operational transformation” prepared GE’s businesses to thrive independently and gave employees “a real simple but important priority set around safety first, then quality, delivery, and then finally cost or productivity.”
GE Aerospace priorities: Airlines, production, sustainability
For the new GE Aerospace, Culp said priorities include supporting airlines as travel rebounds from the pandemic, ramping up production to equip new aircraft, and pursuing sustainable technologies like fuel-efficient engines to reduce emissions.
“Sustainability in many respects has always been at the heart of this business,” Culp told Arabian Business. The company aims to deliver a “20 percent step function in efficiency and sustainability” through innovations like its RISE program for more sustainable jet engines.
After the split, Culp said Edison would likely have “three stocks, not one.” But the GE founder would be pleased to see the revitalised companies “in such good shape” as they chart their own paths, Culp added.
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