Retirees rip General Electric at annual meeting

April 25--At General Electric's annual meeting on Wednesday morning, retirees blasted GE's board of directors and executives who oversaw the conglomerate the past few years as its stock plunged.

GE CEO John Flannery told investors he has focused his attention on reorienting GE to businesses where it can be dominant since replacing Jeff Immelt in the role last year. Even as Flannery spoke, GE shares fell 5 percent Wednesday morning to below $14, with the issue off by more than half from a year ago.

"It's a back-to-basics story on cost, on cash ... on people," Flannery said. "We are disappointed in our performance in 2017."

Retirees, employees and investors were given the opportunity to address Flannery and other GE executives directly at the meeting in Imperial, Pa., outside Pittsburgh, with a man who identified himself as a GE employee in Erie, Pa., telling Flannery the company is "playing shell games with jobs" in Erie and elsewhere with a devastating impact on local communities where job cuts have occurred.

The first speaker drew a sustained round of applause in excoriating Immelt and calling for the removal of board members who were in place as GE stock plunged the past few years, and as the company changed health benefits for retirees among other complaints.

"We're keenly aware of the pain that our performance has caused, and that the dividend cut has caused," Flannery said prior to fielding questions from the audience. "For the company to succeed in the long run, we have to ensure that we have a competitive cost position."

Multiple attendees also called for GE to remove KPMG as its auditor, with the company's board having recommended the firm be retained and shareholders voting in favor on Wednesday. KPMG CEO Lynne Doughtie was on hand for the annual meeting Wednesday morning, hearing firsthand investor skepticism of her firm's auditing in the wake of GE taking billions of dollars of charges against earnings to account for GE Capital exposure to former insurance units.

Leslie Seidman, the former chair of the Norwalk-based Financial Accounting Standards Board that establishes U.S. accounting standards, is one of three new additions to the GE board this year under Flannery, who holds the dual role of chairman.

GE Capital's Norwalk office represents the parent company's last major employment site in southwestern Connecticut, less than two years after GE moved its former headquarters in Fairfield to Boston and vacated Stamford offices. But GE Capital's future is an open question as GE looks to pare off assets, with Flannery reiterating Wednesday a $15 billion target for asset sales.

GE Capital greased the skids for some $14 billion in orders to General Electric's industrial divisions last year, the company disclosed Wednesday, about 12 percent of the $113 billion in industrial revenue generated by GE last year.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman

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