General Electric is still trying to defend itself against accusations of accounting issues. SEC said they are monitoring the situation.
General Electric on Monday named Carolina Dybeck Happe, chief financial officer and executive vice president of A.P. Moller-Maersk, as its new CFO, effective early 2020.
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General Electric shares were little changed on the news.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GE | GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY | 11.55 | +0.02 | +0.17% |
“Carolina is a proven global CFO with a superior track record of delivering results and creating value,” GE CEO Lawrence Culp said in a press release.
Senior vice president and CFO Jamie Miller will leave the company after a transition period.
Dybeck Happe joins GE more than three months after whistleblower Harry Markopolos alleged in a more than 170-page report that the battered American industrial icon hid its problems through fraudulent financial filings with regulators. By Markopolos’ calculation, GE’s accounting missteps total $38 billion, or almost 40 percent of the company’s market value.
General Electric shares are up 58.7 percent year-to-date, but down more than 63 percent from their July 2016 levels.
GE’s Troubled Timeline:
2019:
– October: GE announced sweeping changes to freeze pension plans for approximately 20,000 employees beginning Jan.1, 2021, in order to reduce its pension deficit by $5 billion – $8 billion.
– June: Reports strong first-quarter results, bolstered by its aviation unit.
– March: Warns it could have a negative free cash flow of up to $2 billion this year.
– January: GE alters its agreement with the rail-transport company Wabtec to receive $2.9 billion of cash in exchange for giving up more equity.
2018:
– End of the year: GE sells a $4 billion stake in the oil-services provider Baker Hughes and announces it will sell a majority stake in the software provider ServiceMax to the private-equity firm Silver Lake. It’s able to bring down debt by $21 billion in the fourth quarter.
– October: CEO John Flannery is replaced by Larry Culp after a little more than a year in the top job. The company then takes a $23 billion goodwill charge for its power business. Culp says he will sell assets to raise cash and pay down debt. The SEC and the Justice Department say they will investigate the writedown. The investigation is ongoing.
– June: GE is booted from the Dow Jones Industrial Average and announces a massive restructuring, shifting its focus to aviation, power, and renewables.
