Lending division boosts GE’s earnings

Article Excerpt

GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. $18 (New York symbol GE; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 10.6 billion; Market cap: $190.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.3; Dividend yield: 3.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.ge.com) is seeing rising demand for consumer and business loans at GE Capital, its finance division. That’s helping the company offset slower growth at its industrial businesses, which make a variety of products, including jet engines, turbines and locomotives. In the three months ended June 30, 2011, GE Capital’s earnings jumped 117.0%, to $1.6 billion from $734 million a year earlier. That helped push up GE’s overall earnings by 10.5% in the quarter, to $3.5 billion, or $0.33 a share. A year earlier, it earned $3.2 billion, or $0.29 a share. Revenue fell 3.5%, to $35.6 billion from $36.9 billion. However, that’s partly because the company sold 51% of its NBC Universal entertainment business in February 2011. If you exclude the impact of this sale, revenue from GE’s ongoing…