GE (GE) Checks It Courage At The Door

NBC chief Jeff Zuckerman was quoted in the FT as saying that his company did not bid for Dow Jones (DJ) because "When you have shareholders who you have to create value for, you have to be fiscally disciplined. When you are the shareholder that matters, you play a different game."

Does Zuckerman work for the same company, GE (GE), which has shares trading where they did in 2001? The same company which has a $38 share price compared to $60 in mid-2000?

GE is now all about getting more business in China and India, and helping the world’s enterprises get more "green". It may be a good path, but that won’t be known for a few years. It may deliver steady, unspectacular results as the process has for the last five years.

NBC Universal’s operating profit was down in 2006. It was up only 5.6% in the first quarter of this year.

The chances to build something of real value by putting The Wall Street Journal together with the Financial Times and CNBC is at least as good as the value that Murdoch can create with his Fox business channel and satellite-distributed programming operations. GE’s cost cutters could have taken substantial expense out of a merged FT and WSJ.

But, they didn’t want the risk.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected].