General Electric’s (NYSE:GE) Jeff Immelt just made the inference during a CNBC interview that GE will not be showing any interest in Dow Jones (NYSE:DJ) and implied that they are not going to jettison its NBC media unit. This is actually good news if you prefer the safety of a conglomerate in a slower economy. If you prefer only smaller growth stocks then you have many other choices. We noted that the break-up would be a bad idea in the recent past and stand by that.
He said the equivalent of "we have no interest at all in acquiring DowJones." He noted the newspaper business and respect for Rupert Murdochand News Corp (NYSE:NWS), but any speculation left at all that Immelt or GE was interested in Dow Jones probably just got shot out the window.
Also he noted that they want to keep NBC and are happy with it. Henoted that they would sell a business if someone else can run it betterand be monetized, but he noted that he expects to see double-digitgrowth at the end of the year in the unit. He also noted the upcomingOlympic coverage. In short, he is not going to unload NBC. Immelt has been noted very positively as a corporate leader by us, and we even had him on our "entrenched corporate leader" list because of his leadership.
Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.
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