GE Reports Strong Third-Quarter 2006 Financial Results with 14% EPS Growth and 12% Revenue Growth
Financial Highlights (Continuing Operations)
FAIRFIELD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GE announced today record third-quarter earnings from continuing operations of $5.1 billion or $.49 per share, up 10% and 14%, respectively, from third-quarter 2005. Revenues from continuing operations were $40.9 billion, up 12% from last year's third quarter.
"Our portfolio changes and long-term strategy are paying dividends," said GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt. "The markets where we compete continue to be favorable for GE and our businesses are experiencing significant tailwinds.
"Our strong third quarter performance was led by our Infrastructure segment, where profits rose 24% on excellent performances across its portfolio including Energy, which is on track for the strong second half we expected. Sales of our Infrastructure products exceeded our expectations, creating long-term margin enhancement with future services revenue opportunities. Across the company, total orders were up 15% and our backlog of orders increased 21% year-to-date. We continue to build our capabilities around the world, with global revenues and developing country growth up 12% and 22%, respectively," added Immelt.
"Healthcare, GE Money and Commercial Finance all delivered strong performances. Industrial generated solid profits, in spite of lower margins at Plastics caused by higher than expected commodity prices," said Immelt. "NBC Universal is making good progress in finishing the year on the upswing with positive momentum from the new primetime line-up.
"Two years ago, we said we would focus on increasing organic revenue growth. For the third quarter, we generated 10% organic revenue growth - our seventh straight quarter of organic revenue growth at 2-3x GDP. Our leadership in technology is giving us the edge in winning big orders; our customer focus with Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Lean is expanding our businesses' market shares; and Imagination Breakthroughs are creating a pipeline of incremental revenue growth.
"We continue to redeploy capital from our slow-growth industrial businesses and strengthen our higher growth, higher return businesses. In the quarter, we sold GE Supply and announced the sale of Advanced Materials. We have begun to restructure our cost base to provide long-term margin expansion. We are efficiently managing our capital to fund growth, increase dividends in line with earnings, fund our stock repurchase plan and increase returns," said Immelt. "ROTC increased 180 basis points to 18% in the quarter -- another good step toward our goal of 20% by 2008."
Third-Quarter 2006 Financial Highlights:
Earnings from continuing operations were $5.059 billion, up 10% from $4.592 billion in third quarter 2005. EPS from continuing operations were $.49, up 14% from last year's $.43. Four of six businesses contributed double-digit earnings growth for the quarter.
Continuing Revenues of $40.9 billion were 12% higher than last year's $36.4 billion. Industrial sales increased 13% to $24.5 billion, reflecting core growth. Financial Services revenues grew 9% over last year to $16.3 billion, reflecting core growth and the effects of acquisitions.
Cash generated from GE's operating activities in the first nine months of 2006 totaled $18.5 billion compared with $14.7 billion last year, reflecting a $3.2 billion increase in GE Capital Services' dividends, substantially all of which was proceeds from sales of insurance businesses, and a 7% increase from the industrial businesses.
Loss from discontinued operations was .1 billion for the quarter and included adjustments related to the Genworth and GE Insurance Solutions dispositions, and the results of GE Life, which is in the process of being sold. Accordingly, third-quarter 2006 net EPS were $.48, up 9% from the third quarter of 2005.
Shares repurchased were 209 million year-to-date, or $7.1 billion of the $7-9 billion stock repurchase plan target for 2006.
"We are executing on our growth process, capitalizing on the strong demand for our infrastructure products and services, and expanding globally. With margins and returns growing, we expect broad-based, double-digit segment profit growth with EPS from continuing operations increasing 15-16% to $1.97-1.99 for 2006," said Immelt.
GE will discuss third quarter results on a conference call and Webcast at 8:30 a.m. EDT today. Call information is available at www.ge.com/investor, and related charts will be posted there prior to the call.
GE (NYSE: GE) is Imagination at Work -- a diversified technology, media and financial services company focused on solving some of the world's toughest problems. With products and services ranging from aircraft engines, power generation, water processing and security technology to medical imaging, business and consumer financing, media content and advanced materials, GE serves customers in more than 100 countries and employs more than 300,000 people worldwide. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.ge.com.
Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements
Results are preliminary and unaudited. 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 often contain words such as "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," or "will." Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain. For us, particular uncertainties which could adversely or positively affect our future results include: the behavior of financial markets, including fluctuations in interest rates and commodity prices; strategic actions, including dispositions; future integration of acquired businesses; future financial performance of major industries which we serve, including, without limitation, the air and rail transportation, energy generation, media, real estate and healthcare industries; unanticipated loss development in our insurance businesses; and numerous other matters of national, regional and global scale, including those of a political, economic, business, competitive and regulatory nature. These 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.
Ulrike Gaissert
GE in Deutschland Österreich und der Schweiz
[email protected]
+49-(0)-89-309072-133