GE Plans to Reduce Quarterly Dividend in Conjunction with Revised Capital Allocation Framework

BOSTON - November 13, 2017 - GE (NYSE:GE) today announced that its Board of Directors has determined to set the Company’s quarterly dividend to a projected payout of $.12 per outstanding share of the Company's stock.  This represents a 50% reduction from the current quarterly dividend of $.24.  This change will be effective beginning with the Board’s next dividend declaration, which is expected to occur in December.  

“We understand the importance of this decision to our shareowners and we have not made it lightly.  We are focused on driving total shareholder return and believe this is the right decision to align our dividend payout to cash flow generation," said John Flannery, Chairman and CEO of GE.

Mr. Flannery added, "The dividend remains an important component of GE’s capital allocation framework. With this action and others that we will be discussing this morning, we are acting with urgency to make GE simpler and stronger to drive growth and create more value for our shareowners.”

The Company will discuss additional business and strategy updates at the GE Investor Update, which will begin at 9:00AM EST today, November 13, 2017.

About GE

GE (NYSE:GE) is the world’s Digital Industrial Company, transforming industry with software-defined machines and solutions that are connected, responsive and predictive. GE is organized around a global exchange of knowledge, the "GE Store," through which each business shares and accesses the same technology, markets, structure and intellect. Each invention further fuels innovation and application across our industrial sectors. With people, services, technology and scale, GE delivers better outcomes for customers by speaking the language of industry. www.ge.com 

GE’s Investor Relations website at www.ge.com/investor and our corporate blog at www.gereports.com and @GE_Reports on Twitter, as well as GE’s Facebook page and Twitter accounts, contain a significant amount of information about GE, including financial and other information for investors. GE encourages investors to visit these websites from time to time, as information is updated and new information is posted.

Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

This document contains "forward-looking statements" - that is, statements related to future, not past, events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address our expected future business and financial performance and financial condition, and often contain words such as "expect," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "believe," "seek," "see," "will," "would," “estimate,” “forecast,” "target," “preliminary,” or “range.” 

Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain, such as statements about our announced plan to exit $20 billion or more of assets in 2018 and 2019, the completion of our announced plan to reduce the size of our financial services businesses, including earnings per share of GE Capital Global Holdings, LLC’s (GE Capital) retained businesses (Verticals); expected income and Industrial operating profit; earnings per share, including the impact of the new revenue recognition accounting standard; revenues; organic growth; growth and productivity associated with our Digital and Additive businesses; margins; cost structure and plans to reduce costs; restructuring, impairment or other financial charges; tax rates; transaction-related synergies, proceeds and gains; cash flows and cash flow conversion, including the impact of working capital, contract assets and pension funding contributions; returns on capital and investment; capital expenditures; capital allocation, including dividends, share repurchases, acquisitions and liquidity; or capital structure, including credit ratings, debt-to-earnings ratios and leverage. 

For us, particular uncertainties that could cause our actual results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements include: 

• the ongoing portfolio review being undertaken by our new chief executive officer;
• our ability to convert Industrial earnings into cash and the amount and timing of our cash flows and earnings, which may be impacted by long-term services agreement dynamics, the amount and timing of dividends from GE Capital and other conditions, all of which may affect our ability to pay our quarterly dividend at the planned level or to repurchase shares at planned levels; 
• our ability to maintain our current credit rating and the impact on our funding costs and competitive position if we do not do so; 
• changes in law, economic and financial conditions, including interest and exchange rate volatility, commodity and equity prices and the value of financial assets; 
• the impact of conditions in the financial and credit markets on the availability and cost of GE Capital funding, and GE Capital’s exposure to counterparties; 
• pending and future mortgage loan repurchase claims, other litigation claims and the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 and other investigations in connection with WMC, which may affect our estimates of liability, including possible loss estimates; 
• GE Capital’s ability to pay dividends to GE at the planned level, which may be affected by GE Capital’s cash flows and earnings, claims and investigations relating to WMC, charges that may be required in connection with GE Capital’s run-off insurance operations, credit ratings and other factors; 
• our ability to launch new products in a cost-effective manner;
• our ability to increase margins through restructuring and other cost reduction measures;
• our ability to convert pre-order commitments/wins into orders/bookings; 
• the price we realize on orders/bookings since commitments/wins are stated at list prices; 
• customer actions or market developments such as early aircraft retirements, reduced demand for equipment and services in the energy markets in which we operate or shifts in the competitive landscape for our products and services, changes in economic conditions, including oil prices, and other factors that may affect the level of demand and financial performance of the major industries and customers we serve; 
• the impact of regulation and regulatory, investigative and legal proceedings and legal compliance risks, including the impact of Alstom investigative and legal proceedings; 
• our capital allocation plans, as such plans may change including with respect to the timing and size of dividends, dividend yield, share repurchases, acquisitions, joint ventures, dispositions, pension funding contributions, organic investments, including research and development, investment in Digital and other capital expenditures, and other strategic actions; 
• our success in completing, including obtaining regulatory approvals and satisfying other closing conditions for, announced transactions, such as our announced plan to sell our Industrial Solutions business or other dispositions that we may pursue; 
• our success in integrating acquired businesses and operating joint ventures, including Baker Hughes, a GE company; 
• our ability to realize revenue and cost synergies from announced transactions, acquired businesses and joint ventures, including Alstom and Baker Hughes, a GE company;
• the impact of potential information technology or data security breaches; 
• the other factors that are described in “Forward-Looking Statements” in Baker Hughes, a GE company’s, most recent earnings release or SEC filing; and 
• the other factors that are described in “Risk Factors” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016.

These or other uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements.  We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements.

This document also includes certain forward-looking projected financial information that is based on current estimates and forecasts. Actual results could differ materially.

Contacts 

Investor Contact:

Matt Cribbins, 617.443.3400

[email protected]

Media Contact:

Jennifer Erickson, 646.682.5620

[email protected]