如果首席執(zhí)行官在宣布辭職之后公司的股票卻應(yīng)聲上漲，遇到這種情況任誰都不會好受，但這便是杰夫·伊梅爾特在2017年6月12日的遭遇。他卸任的消息在某種程度上并不讓人感到吃驚，因為一些投資者和分析師多年來一直都在敦促其下臺，但此消息一出，業(yè)界依然一片嘩然。

伊梅爾特已擔任通用電氣（以下簡稱“GE”）首席執(zhí)行官長達16年之久，而在外界看來，公司沒有制定任何具體的繼任計劃，而且61歲的伊梅爾特也沒有任何讓位的打算。然而突然間，外界被告知伊梅爾特在僅僅7周之后就要離職（其非執(zhí)行董事長一職還將延長兩個月），其繼任為約翰·弗蘭納里，后者是GE醫(yī)療業(yè)務(wù)負責人，業(yè)已在GE供職30年。沒過多久，投資者便意識到這是一條利好消息。雖然當天大盤業(yè)績平平，但GE的股價在投資者的推動下上漲了4%。

這一樂觀情緒來得似乎有點太早了。6月12日，GE的股價以每股28.94美元收盤，但自此之后再也沒有觸及這一價位。隨著全球經(jīng)濟的復蘇和美國股票指數(shù)的飆升，GE卻轟然倒塌，讓股東1000億美元的財富化成了泡影。在受到接二連三不利消息的打擊之后，投資者可謂是心力交瘁，不知所措。William Blair & Co.的分析師尼古拉斯·黑曼說：“投資者對此感到困惑不已，而且失去了投資意愿。目前的情況并不是地形勘察那么簡單，而是在沒有燈光和地圖的情況下探索山洞?！盡elius Research的分析師斯考特·戴維斯稱，一些投資者已經(jīng)對GE不再抱有任何幻想：“很多投資者告訴我們，他們不會再買GE的股票?！?

It’s a bad day for a CEO when he announces he’s retiring and the stock goes up. That was Jeff Immelt’s day on June 12, 2017. The news of his departure was in one sense no surprise—some investors and analysts had been urging his ouster for years—but it was also a shock.

He’d been General Electric’s CEO for almost 16 years, and outsiders were unaware of any specific succession plans or that ?Immelt, at age 61, had any intention of stepping down. Suddenly they were told that in just seven weeks he’d be gone as CEO (he remained nonexecutive board chairman an additional two months), to be succeeded by John Flannery, head of GE’s health care business and a 30-year employee. Investors didn’t need long to decide this was good news. The market was flat that day, but they bid GE stock up 4%.

Their optimism was at best premature. The stock closed at $28.94 on June 12 and has not reached that price since. As economies boomed worldwide and U.S. stock indexes soared, GE has collapsed in a meltdown that has destroyed well over $100 billion of shareholder wealth. Pounded by a nonstop barrage of bad news, investors are traumatized and disoriented. “They just can’t figure it out and don’t want to invest,” says analyst Nicholas Heymann of William Blair & Co. “This isn’t like surveying the landscape. It’s spelunking with no lights and no manual.” Analyst Scott Davis of Melius Research says some investors have become permanently disillusioned: “Many have told us they will never own GE again.”

那些大量購買GE股票的退休人員和雇員對此感到憤怒不已；一些人還包圍了GE在4月舉行的年度股東大會。一些前任高管對GE當前的處境也是感到震驚不已。其中一名前任高管說：“這簡直是匪夷所思。我做夢都沒有想到會出現(xiàn)這一天。太瘋狂了?！碑吘梗@可是GE啊，這位企業(yè)貴族是道瓊斯指數(shù)最初的成員企業(yè)之一，而且也擁有全球最知名的管理學府。如今，它卻深陷財務(wù)泥沼，未來不甚明朗。其債券在伊梅爾特就任首席執(zhí)行官時擁有3A評級，如今的級別卻比A2級還要低5檔，其交易價格與Baa評級的債券相當，僅比垃圾債券高出一線而已。

為應(yīng)對這一窘境，GE對上屆領(lǐng)導層進行了大換血，這種魄力在同等規(guī)模和地位的公司當中可謂是前無古人。在過去10個月中，相繼離開的高管包括首席執(zhí)行官、首席財務(wù)官（還兼任副董事長）、另外兩名副董事長（共4位副董事長）、最大業(yè)務(wù)部門的負責人以及多名其他高管和半數(shù)的董事。董事會的劇烈震蕩“可能是美國企業(yè)治理史上最為重大的事件之一”，一位GE的長期供應(yīng)商說道。作為GE的學生，他一直密切關(guān)注著GE。

Retirees and employees who bought heavily into the stock are furious; some picketed GE’s annual meeting in April. Former executives are dumbfounded. “It’s unfathomable,” says one. “You couldn’t possibly dream this up. It’s crazy.” After all, this is GE, a corporate aristocrat, an original Dow component, the world’s most celebrated management academy, now revealed as a financial quagmire with a deeply uncertain future. Its bonds, rated triple-A when Immelt became chief, are now rated five tiers lower at A2 and trade at prices more consistent with a Baa rating, one notch above junk.

In response to this debacle, GE has repudiated its previous leadership with a zeal unprecedented in a company of its size and stature. Gone in the past 10 months are the CEO, the CFO (who was also a vice chair), two of the three other vice chairs, the head of the largest business, various other executives—and half the board of directors. The radical board shake-up “could be one of the most seminal events in the history of U.S. corporate governance,” says a longtime vendor and close student of GE.

伊梅爾特拒絕就此文接受采訪，但是向《財富》提供了一份聲明。在聲明中，他介紹了自己獲得的成就，并說道：“沒有人希望看到股價會跌至當前的水平。在我任期的最后一年，我購買了公司800萬美元的股票，因為我對GE團隊充滿信心。我熱愛這家公司，而且我也敦促投資者開始向前看，并在市場中大獲全勝?！?

弗蘭納里釋放的最勁爆的信息是，他將徹底與GE近期歷史訣別。他在去年10月對投資者說：“我們一直在，而且將繼續(xù)對公司進行徹底的評估。”具體說來：“我們正在評估公司的業(yè)務(wù)、流程、企業(yè)[功能]、公司文化、決策流程、對于目標和問責制的看法、員工激勵措施、不同領(lǐng)域投資的優(yōu)先順序……全球研發(fā)、數(shù)字和添加劑[制造]。我們還評估了公司的操作流程、團隊、資本配置以及與投資者的溝通方式。所有的一切都成為了評估對象……GE將發(fā)生翻天覆地的變化?！?

由此得出的結(jié)論：公司目前一團糟。

弗蘭納里甚至還提出了一個不可思議的看法：GE在拆分之后可能會更有價值。Melius Research的戴維斯說：“GE所面臨的壓力非常大，可能會迫使公司采取某些分拆舉措。”不管最終結(jié)局如何，弗蘭納里都有可能因此而出名，要么成為GE的救命恩人，要么成為導致其分崩離析的罪人。

所有這一切為各地投資者帶來了兩個疑問：GE怎么了？今后會怎么樣？公司必須先回答第一個問題。這個故事必然和杰夫·伊梅爾特有關(guān)，而且遠在最近的股票內(nèi)爆之前便已經(jīng)開始了。用前GE高管的話來說，“車輪從2017年開始脫離，但車輪上的輪爪螺母很久之前便已經(jīng)松動了。”

伊梅爾特經(jīng)常提到，自己在首席執(zhí)行官任期伊始并不怎么順利：他在上任4天后發(fā)生了911事件。多架飛機（其中的一架用的是GE的引擎）撞入了世貿(mào)中心大廈，由GE Capital承保。航空旅行需求大幅縮減，讓GE這家全球最大飛機租賃商的業(yè)務(wù)步履維艱。在45歲的伊梅爾特擔任首席執(zhí)行官的第一周，他便遇到了一生中最大的危機。

他成功地度過了這一難關(guān)，被迫做出了諸多常人始料未及的決定。如果當時不是他支持并為GE的客戶美國西部航空公司的政府貸款擔保提供部分資金保障，事情會怎么樣？如果他沒有點頭，如今這家航空公司將不復存在。他在職業(yè)生涯中從未碰過航空業(yè)務(wù)，但他依然提供了支持。美國西部航空公司時任和當前（通過一系列并購）的首席執(zhí)行官道格·帕克說：“我對伊梅爾特感激不盡。這是一個巨大的風險。他本來可以以不懂行為由拒絕此事?！?

在接下來的幾個月中，隨著各國和各大公司開始癡迷于證券，伊梅爾特看到了一個機會。GE以不為人知的價格收購了Ion Track，后者擁有高級爆炸物檢測技術(shù)。18個月后，他以9億美元的價格購買了另一家爆炸物檢測公司InVision。然而在2009年，他將兩家公司包裝成為GE Homeland Security，并在一次交易中出售了其大部分控股權(quán)益，但售價僅有7.6億美元。他的證券豪賭以血虧告終。

這一敗舉拉開了一個模式的帷幕，眾多分析師和觀察家認為這一模式是導致GE陷入當前困境的一個重要因素。他們稱，伊梅爾特喜歡跟隨大流，以高價收購當前最火的業(yè)務(wù)。

例如，2010年到2014年期間，油價位于100美元/桶附近，GE購買了油氣行業(yè)9家公司。然后，在2016年，油價出現(xiàn)了腰斬，GE同意將其油氣業(yè)務(wù)與上市油田服務(wù)提供商貝克休斯合并，創(chuàng)建了一家由GE持有絕大部分股權(quán)的公司。監(jiān)管方于去年7月批準了這一交易，貝克休斯的股價迅速下探，即使油價有所回升，但公司的股價到目前為止仍未能達到去年夏季的高點位置。在伊梅爾特離開GE僅僅數(shù)天之后，公司通過口頭通知成立了一個名為金融和資本配置委員會的專門小組，專注于審查管理層資金控制松散問題。弗蘭納里對這個委員會提出的第一項任務(wù)便是“評估公司退出貝克休斯的方式?！?

另一個案例：2004年，隨著美國房價的飆升，GE向一家名為WMC的次貸抵押公司注資5億美元。2007年，房價下跌，GE解雇了WMC大部分員工，并出售了公司，當年損失了10億美元。今年2月份，GE宣稱，美國司法部有可能會認定WMC在被GE收購后存在違法行為，為此，GE撥備了15億美元，用于應(yīng)對可能的處罰。

并非伊梅爾特經(jīng)手的所有交易都會賠錢。就其收購和處置而言，最令人吃驚的莫過于其驚人的數(shù)量。他開展了數(shù)百個交易，并趾高氣揚地宣稱自己是唯一一個曾經(jīng)購買并出售了超過1000億美元業(yè)務(wù)的首席執(zhí)行官。GE在破產(chǎn)拍賣中以3.58億美元收購了安然的風力渦輪機制造資產(chǎn)，并以此為基礎(chǔ)（隨后通過多項收購進一步擴張）打造的一項業(yè)務(wù)在去年斬獲了103億美元的營收。在金融危機爆發(fā)前夕，伊梅爾特以116億美元的價格將GE的塑料業(yè)務(wù)出售給沙特基礎(chǔ)工業(yè)公司，成為了他主導的業(yè)界交易額最高的業(yè)務(wù)剝離案例。該價格超過了分析師的預期，被廣泛譽為GE的杰作。

然而，從整體來看，伊梅爾特的收購技巧算不上出眾，而且也引發(fā)了一個更大的問題。如果讓華爾街的分析師、客戶、經(jīng)銷商、競爭對手、前任高管和前任董事來回答“GE為何會走到今天這個地步”這個問題時，他們首先都會提到同一個內(nèi)容：“資本配置”。這一點對于任何首席執(zhí)行官來說都至關(guān)重要，對于GE來說尤為如此，因為其業(yè)務(wù)組合一直在不斷地變化當中。外界幾乎一致認為，伊梅爾特并不擅長此道。

盡管伊梅爾特最大的業(yè)務(wù)剝離項目——公司的塑料業(yè)務(wù)——可能是他最輝煌的交易戰(zhàn)績，但他所主導的最大的收購交易似乎卻成為了他最大的敗筆，而且仍在拖累公司。這次交易就是2015年對阿爾斯通的收購，這家法國公司是GE最大的業(yè)務(wù)GE Power的有力競爭對手。GE Power致力于生產(chǎn)發(fā)電廠發(fā)電用的大型渦輪，并為其提供服務(wù)。收購價格達到了106億美元，是GE歷史上最昂貴的業(yè)內(nèi)收購。伊梅爾特的發(fā)言人指出，董事會曾先后八次對這一交易進行評估，然后批準了該交易。

該交易存在不少問題。阿爾斯通的利潤率較低，但GE認為自己可以幫助其扭轉(zhuǎn)這一局面。GE的策略很大一部分依賴于銷售服務(wù)，然而監(jiān)管方迫使GE剝離了阿爾斯通的服務(wù)業(yè)務(wù)。此次收購帶來了3萬多名高成本雇員，其中很多都位于歐洲，但是GE認為這些員工貢獻的價值將超過其成本。最糟糕的是，收購的時機差到了極點。GE花重金押注使用化石燃料的渦輪機，而可再生能源的成本競爭力卻在不斷提升。結(jié)果：全球市場對GE Power產(chǎn)品的需求大幅下滑，但GE大量資金的走向卻是背道而馳。GE Power的利潤暴跌了45%。

Immelt declined to be interviewed for this article but sent Fortune a statement in which he cited accomplishments and said, “None of us like where the stock is today. I purchased $8 million of stock in my last year as CEO because I believe in the GE team. I love the company, and I urge them to start looking forward and win in the markets.”

Flannery’s strongest message is how completely he’s breaking with GE’s recent past. “The review of the company has been, and continues to be, exhaustive,” he told investors last October. Specifically: “We are evaluating our businesses, processes, [the] corporate [function], our culture, how decisions are made, how we think about goals and accountability, how we incentivize people, how we prioritize investments in the segments?…?global research, digital, and additive [manufacturing]. We have also reviewed our operating processes, our team, capital allocation, and how we communicate to investors. Everything is on the table?…?Things will not stay the same at GE.”

Inescapable conclusion: This place is an unholy mess.

Flannery has even voiced the unthinkable, that GE might be more valuable in pieces. “The pressure on GE to announce some sort of breakup is very high,” says Davis of Melius Research. Whatever happens, Flannery has a good shot at becoming famous—as the guy who saved GE or the guy who broke it up.

All of which leaves the world asking two questions: What happened? And what’s next? The first question must be answered first. It is inevitably a story about Jeff Immelt, and it starts well before the stock’s recent implosion. As a former GE executive puts it, “The wheels came off in 2017, but the lug nuts had been loosening for a long time.”

Immelt often notes that his CEO tenure got off to a rough start; it began just four days before 9/11. Airplanes, one of them powered by GE engines, crashed into the World Trade Center towers, insured by GE Capital. Air travel demand contracted violently, hobbling GE’s business as the world’s largest lessor of planes. In his first week as chief, at age 45, he faced a once-in-a-lifetime crisis.

He came through it well, forced to make decisions for which no one could be prepared. Should he support and partially backstop a government loan guarantee for America West Airlines, a GE customer? If he didn’t say yes—now—the airline would fail. Never in his career had he touched the airline business. He said yes. “I’m eternally grateful to him,” says Doug Parker, America West’s CEO at the time, and now, through a series of mergers, CEO of American Airlines. “It was a huge risk. He could have said he didn’t understand this and wouldn’t do it.”

In the following months, as countries and companies obsessed over security, Immelt saw an opportunity. GE bought Ion Track, a company with advanced explosive-detection technology, for an undisclosed price. Some 18 months later he bought another explosive-detection company, ?InVision, for $900 million. But in 2009 he sold a large majority interest in the two firms, packaged as GE Homeland Security, in a deal that valued the unit at just $760 million. His security bet was a bust.

It was the beginning of a pattern, which many analysts and observers say is an important element in GE’s current misery. Immelt followed fads, they say, paying top dollar to acquire the hot businesses of the moment.

For example, from 2010 through 2014, when oil prices hovered around $100 a barrel, GE bought at least nine businesses in the oil and gas industry. Then, in 2016, with prices down by half, it agreed to combine its oil and gas unit with Baker Hughes, a publicly traded oilfield services provider, creating a company owned mostly by GE. Regulators approved the deal last July; Baker Hughes stock quickly fell and has yet to reach the price it hit that summer, even as oil prices have risen. Just days after Immelt left GE’s board, in a telling move, it formed a panel called the Finance and Capital Allocation Committee, whose express purpose is to scrutinize management’s loose control of its wallet. The first thing Flannery tasked them to work on was “evaluating our exit options on Baker Hughes.”

Another example: In 2004, with U.S. home prices rocketing, GE paid $500 million for a subprime mortgage company called WMC. In 2007, with home prices falling, GE laid off most WMC employees and sold the company, which lost $1 billion that year. This past February, GE announced that the Justice Department “is likely to assert” violations of law at WMC when GE owned it, and GE reserved $1.5 billion against a possible penalty.

By no means were all of Immelt’s deals losers. What’s most striking about his acquisitions and divestitures is their staggering quantity. He did hundreds of deals and claims with apparent pride to be the only CEO who has ever bought and sold over $100 billion of businesses. Among those deals were some big winners. GE bought Enron’s wind turbine manufacturing assets for $358 million in a bankruptcy auction, creating the foundation of a business (augmented with several later acquisitions) that brought in $10.3 billion of revenue last year. In his largest industrial divestiture, Immelt sold GE’s plastics business to Saudi Basic Industries for $11.6 billion just before the financial crisis; the price was more than analysts expected, and the deal was widely regarded as excellent for GE.

On the whole, though, Immelt’s shopping skills were not stellar, and it was part of a larger problem. Ask Wall Street analysts, customers, vendors, competitors, former executives, and former directors to explain how GE ended up where it is, and their first words are the same: “capital allocation.” That’s a crucial job for any CEO, nowhere more so than at GE, with its ever-shifting portfolio of businesses. The near-universal consensus outside the company is that Immelt was bad at it.

While Immelt’s biggest industrial divestiture, plastics, may have been his best deal, his biggest acquisition looks like his worst—and it’s still dragging the company down. That was his 2015 acquisition of Alstom, a big French competitor of GE’s largest business, GE Power, which makes and services the huge turbines that utilities use to generate electricity. At a price of $10.6 billion, this was GE’s most expensive industrial acquisition ever. An Immelt spokesman notes that the board reviewed the deal eight times and approved it.

The problems were many. Alstom’s profit margins were low, but GE figured it could raise them. GE’s strategy relied heavily on selling services, but regulators made the company divest Alstom’s service business. The acquisition added more than 30,000 high-cost employees, many in Europe, but GE figured they’d more than pay for themselves. Worst of all, the purchase was spectacularly mistimed. GE doubled down on fossil-fuel-fired turbines just as renewables were becoming cost competitive. Result: Global demand for GE Power’s products collapsed, while GE had bet heavily the other way. GE Power’s profit plunged 45%.

該交易成為了一場災難，也讓GE成為了業(yè)界的笑柄。在GE Power一落千丈之際，一位前任高管回憶道：“人們看著我們說：‘你們干這行都有上百年的歷史了吧，不是嗎？’”在伊梅爾特任職期間，GE都會理直氣壯地為這一交易辯護。然而，就在伊梅爾特辭去董事長一職數(shù)周之后，弗蘭納里承認了所有人心知肚明的事情，他對投資者說：“很明顯，阿爾斯通長期以來的表現(xiàn)明顯低于我們的預期。我想這一點大家有目共睹?！?

然而，阿爾斯通并非是伊梅爾特在資本配置方面所犯的最大的錯誤，而且阿爾斯通與之相比還遠遠不及。這一事件發(fā)生在數(shù)年前，而且逐漸升級，當時，他在金融危機之前大幅提升了GE Capital的負債規(guī)模。一個廣為流行的說法是，他的前任杰克·韋爾奇將GE Capital擴大到了一個不可持續(xù)的水平，迫使伊梅爾特將其縮減至合理的規(guī)模，但數(shù)字卻指向了相反的方向。GE Capital在韋爾奇最后10年的任期中所貢獻的利潤從未超過GE總利潤的41%，而伊梅爾特則通過讓GE Capital背負2500億美元的額外債務(wù)，擴張了其業(yè)務(wù)規(guī)模，直到2007年，GE Capital 2007年在GE利潤中的占比達到了55%。他還允許GE Capital承擔更多的風險，最明顯的舉措就是讓該公司直接在商業(yè)地產(chǎn)市場進行權(quán)益投資。此舉一開始倒是賺了不少錢，但是在金融危機爆發(fā)之后，GE Capital的利潤蒸發(fā)殆盡。伊梅爾特自大蕭條以來首次削減了GE的派息，而且被迫立即向沃倫·巴菲特求援30億美元。GE Capital自此之后便一蹶不振。當伊梅爾特2015年宣布計劃解散GE Capital時，投資者無不為之歡呼雀躍。

The transaction has been a debacle and an embarrassment. A former senior leader recalls that as GE Power cratered, “people looked at us and said, ‘You’ve been in this business a hundred years, right?’?” GE nonetheless defended the deal stoutly as long as Immelt was around. Then, a few weeks after he stepped down as board chairman, Flannery acknowledged what everyone already knew, telling investors, “Alstom has clearly performed below our expectations, clearly. I don’t need to tell you that.”

Yet Alstom was not Immelt’s worst capital-allocation blunder, nor even close. That occurred years earlier, in increments, as he bulked up GE Capital before the financial crisis. A popular story line holds that his predecessor, Jack Welch, enlarged GE Capital unsustainably, forcing Immelt to deflate it back to sane dimensions. But the numbers show the opposite. GE Capital never accounted for more than 41% of GE profits during Welch’s last decade, while Immelt expanded the business by adding over $250 billion of debt to it, until it accounted for 55% of GE’s profit in 2007. He also allowed it to take greater risks, notably by making direct equity investments in commercial real estate. That worked great until the crisis, when most of GE Capital’s profit evaporated. Immelt cut GE’s dividend for the first time since the Great Depression and had to ask Warren Buffett for $3 billion right away. GE Capital never recovered, and when Immelt announced plans to dismantle it in 2015, investors cheered.

伊梅爾特在其他方面的資本配置也存在問題。他曾花費930億美元回購股票，此舉倒不一定就是壞主意，但不幸的是，他似乎十分擅長以高價回購。2008年-2011年期間，GE僅花費了70億美元（包含在上述930億美元中）用于回購股票，當時股價基本上還只有十幾美元。隨后，公司花費了近800億美元回購股票，價格超過了30美元/股。

即便在GE業(yè)務(wù)現(xiàn)金創(chuàng)造能力不足時，伊梅爾特依然維持了派息額度，此舉迫使他不得不通過借錢來直接向股東付錢。伊梅爾特的一位發(fā)言人說：“杰夫有一次曾削減過派息額度，但他不希望第二次削減?！备ヌm納里也承認：“多年來，我們所支付的股息超過了我們的自由現(xiàn)金流。”在伊梅爾特離任數(shù)天之后，弗蘭納里和董事會將股息降低了一半。

不當?shù)馁Y本配置能夠通過數(shù)據(jù)資料體現(xiàn)出來，但人力資源和文化管理的量化則要難得多，然而，這兩個因素的重要性至少不亞于資本配置，而這一點也是GE陷入困境的又一個因素。

GE知名的人才培養(yǎng)機制的硬件依然存在，包括紐約州克勞頓管理學院、Session C管理評估等，然而，多名曾與伊梅爾特共事的前任高管認為，人才系統(tǒng)的軟件出現(xiàn)了倒退。一位前任高管說：“毫無疑問的是，領(lǐng)導力培養(yǎng)流程的嚴謹性出現(xiàn)了一些問題?！彼目捶ㄒ卜从沉硕嗄昵按嬖诘囊粋€普遍觀點。然而，這些僅僅是一些看法罷了，而且伊梅爾特的一位發(fā)言人指出，GE飛機引擎和醫(yī)療業(yè)務(wù)強勁的業(yè)績反駁了有關(guān)GE存在廣泛文化問題的看法。一些高管認為，績效文化依然十分強大。約翰·萊斯說：“我有很多機會離開公司，并拿到更高的薪水。我之所以留在GE是因為公司的文化。它會敦促你發(fā)揮自身最大的能力，如果你未能做到這一點，那么你就得對此進行解釋并承擔相應(yīng)的責任?！?

弗蘭納里的行動和聲明異常有力地證明，GE的人力資本和文化也需要得到高度的重視，這一點也證實了批評者一直在強調(diào)的問題。顯然，他對于所接手的高管團隊并不滿意，并指出，“40%的團隊都是新人?！彼恢倍荚谔嵝淹顿Y者，“公司的領(lǐng)導層發(fā)生了重大變化?！?

He mishandled capital in other ways too. He spent $93 billion buying back stock, which isn’t necessarily a bad idea, but he had an unfortunate knack for buying at high prices. GE spent only $7 billion of that $93 billion from 2008 through 2011, when the stock price was mostly in the teens; the company spent almost $80 billion buying back shares at prices over $30.

Immelt also maintained the dividend even when GE’s operations weren’t furnishing enough cash, forcing him to borrow money and send it directly to shareholders. An Immelt spokesman says, “Jeff cut the dividend once. He did not want to do it twice.” Flannery admits, “We’ve been paying a dividend in excess of our free cash flow for a number of years now.” Days after Immelt left, Flannery and the board cut the dividend by half.

Inept capital allocation can be documented with hard data. Management of human capital and culture is much squishier but at least as important. It too was a contributor to GE’s collapse.

The hardware of GE’s famous talent development apparatus remains in place—the famous Crotonville, N.Y., campus, the Session C management appraisals—but several former executives who worked with Immelt believe the system’s software deteriorated. “There’s no question that the leadership development process lost some of its rigor,” says one, echoing a common view that goes back years. Still, those are only opinions, and an Immelt spokesman notes that the strong performance of GE’s jet engine and health care businesses rebuts the notion of a broad cultural problem. Some executives felt the culture of performance remained powerful. “I had many opportunities to leave and be paid more,” says John Rice, who retired as a vice chairman in March. “I stayed because of the culture. It pushed you to do all you could do, and if you didn’t, you had to explain it and be accountable for it.”

The strongest evidence that human capital and culture need serious attention at GE comes from Flannery’s actions and statements, which reinforce what the critics have been saying. He clearly wasn’t happy with the top team he inherited and has noted that “40% of the team is new.” He constantly reminds investors that “there have been significant changes in the leadership of the company.”

弗蘭納里最喜歡的話題可能莫過于完善GE公司文化的必要性。他對投資者說：“文化一詞，我曾經(jīng)強調(diào)了數(shù)百遍?！痹谄髽I(yè)內(nèi)部，這個詞語時常會出現(xiàn)在他們耳畔。他明確表示，GE需要加強其嚴謹性和責任感。努力是件好事，結(jié)果最重要。

弗蘭納里（拒絕了采訪請求）指的是缺乏執(zhí)行的公司。他說：“GE Power非常糟糕的執(zhí)行使其市場狀況進一步惡化?！迸c伊梅爾特共事的高管稱，他意識到了執(zhí)行的重要性，但感覺公司的執(zhí)行成為了一種自我維持的核心競爭力。一名高管說：“杰夫在一開始認為這家公司有著超凡的運營執(zhí)行力，而且無論如何都要將其保持下去。這是個致命的錯誤?！?

在對自己所繼承的文化進行批判時，弗蘭納里提出的最令人吃驚的一個觀點是：公司需要“更多的坦誠、更多的辯論和更多的對抗?！笔裁?，更多的坦誠？在GE？長期以來，這家公司一直將坦誠視為粗魯，并因此而聞名。伊梅爾特的一名發(fā)言人稱，與伊梅爾特的會面“充斥著對抗”。然而，弗蘭納里總是會提到這一點，而且與伊梅爾特共事的高管也表達了同樣的顧慮。一位前任高管說：“杰夫基本上不會聽從下屬的意見?！币晃磺肮ぷ魅藛T提到：“在杰夫任職期間，對抗是不存在的。當最大的老板自認為是全世界最聰明的人時，問題就會變得很嚴重。”

杰夫·伊梅爾特是一位大塊頭、和藹可親、充滿魅力的人。他有一種自然的親和力。他在辛辛那提長大，他的父親是GE飛機引擎業(yè)務(wù)的一名經(jīng)理，然而杰夫稱，他父親并非是他為GE效力的原因。達特茅斯學院以橄欖球運動員的身份將其錄入學校，并讓他負責進攻截鋒這一并不怎么顯耀的位置，而且他認為自己今后可能會成為職業(yè)選手。校友將他視為領(lǐng)導者，他是兄弟會的會長，而且他的一位兄弟會成員、前Vanguard首席執(zhí)行官比爾·麥克納布稱，大家對伊梅爾特成為GE首席執(zhí)行官并不感到吃驚。

在畢業(yè)之后，他回到了辛辛那提，在寶潔知名的品牌管理項目中找了一份工作。坐在他旁邊的就是微軟未來的首席執(zhí)行官史蒂夫·鮑爾默；他們曾一塊研究過鄧肯·海茵的蛋糕配方，而且伊梅爾特在回憶時經(jīng)常會大笑不已，并稱他們當時都是“非常糟糕的員工”。當然，他們也不至于那么糟糕。多年之后，伊梅爾特來到了哈佛商學院，然后進入了GE，最初在公司總部擔任內(nèi)部營銷顧問。

當他成為首席執(zhí)行官時，他遇到了每一位新首席執(zhí)行官都必須面對的任務(wù)：重新改造公司。根據(jù)傳統(tǒng)，前任首席執(zhí)行官會離開董事會，并離開總部大樓，從而讓新任長官能夠放開手腳，重新確立GE的發(fā)展方向。伊梅爾特所推行的變革有兩項需要立即執(zhí)行。他立即著手提升了GE的國際化水平。令人吃驚的是，像GE這樣一家大型的知名公司，其60%的業(yè)務(wù)來源于美國國內(nèi)。在伊梅爾特離開時，GE的業(yè)務(wù)遍布180個國家，其61%的收入來源于美國之外的地區(qū)。新興市場貢獻的營收從100億美元提升至450億美元。一些分析師認為，在某些市場，尤其是中國，大部分新業(yè)務(wù)的收購價格過高。然而，全球經(jīng)濟增長的軌跡已經(jīng)在移動，而且GE應(yīng)緊隨其后。

《財富》美國500強：第18位

2017公司情況：通用電氣

營收：1223億美元

利潤：虧損580億美元

雇員數(shù)量：31.3萬名

股東總回報：-3.8%*

*股東總回報假定使用2007-2017年年利率。

面對大趨勢，伊梅爾特的另一個主要應(yīng)對舉措就是提升GE的數(shù)字化水平。此舉在現(xiàn)在看來是顯而易見的事情，然而在7年前，大型工業(yè)公司所面臨的數(shù)字化機遇并不十分明顯。分析師對伊梅爾特的先見之明大家贊賞，然而公司再次在執(zhí)行上面犯了錯誤。分析師黑曼說：“他們很早便發(fā)現(xiàn)了數(shù)據(jù)對工業(yè)的價值，但公司付出的代價要比預想的高昂得多?！?015年，伊梅爾特甚至稱，GE到2020年將成為排名前十的軟件公司。如今，沒有人會抱有這樣的想法，而且公司位于加州圣雷蒙的軟件業(yè)務(wù)將裁掉100多名員工。然而，這一理念顯然是正確的，而且GE的行動方向也是正確的。弗蘭納里說：“我們?nèi)砸恍闹铝τ诠镜腫數(shù)字化]業(yè)務(wù)，但是我們需要一個更加專注的策略?！?

上述很多變化都發(fā)生在金融危機之后，而且投資者對于所看到的變化大多持贊成態(tài)度。GE股價跟隨標普500指數(shù)穩(wěn)步上升的步伐。當GE在2015年落后標普500之后，伊梅爾特信心滿滿地預測公司的股價將在2018年上漲2美元，可謂是大幅增長。激進投資者尼爾森·佩爾茨的Trian Fund購買了公司25億美元的股份。佩爾茨因追究資產(chǎn)組合領(lǐng)導者的責任而聞名，因此伊梅爾特不得不兌現(xiàn)其2018年股價上漲2美元的承諾。股價恢復上漲，但是車輪螺母越來越松。2016年末，全世界都開始意識到這一問題。

人們首先發(fā)現(xiàn)的問題是現(xiàn)金。GE處于嚴重的入不敷出狀態(tài)。公司有能力支付其賬單，但是其銀行儲蓄卻越來越少，大量資金需求日漸顯現(xiàn)，例如補足缺口達數(shù)十億美元的養(yǎng)老金。2015-2017年期間，GE創(chuàng)造了300億美元的自由現(xiàn)金流和資產(chǎn)銷售額，但是公司在股票回購、派息和收購方面耗費了750億美元。經(jīng)濟學家赫伯·斯騰曾說過一條至理名言：如果一件事無法永遠持續(xù)下去，它總有停止的那一天。GE走上了一條不歸路。

引發(fā)世界關(guān)注的第二件事情在于GE Power問題的嚴重程度。近期，也就是在2017年5月末，伊梅爾特向華爾街透露，GE Power的運營利潤展望為“++”，意味著非常積極。僅僅在兩個月之后，GE報告稱GE Power的季度利潤出現(xiàn)了下滑，訂單也有所下降，而且公司的展望也不是很好。隨著今年時光的流逝，公司的情況不斷惡化。

然而，不利消息接踵而至。在GE于11月停止派息之后，公司在12月宣布GE Power裁員1.2萬名。1月，GE減記62億美元，涉及GE Captial長期照護保險業(yè)務(wù)，并表示該業(yè)務(wù)在未來7年中需另行計提150億美元。這筆始料未及的費用異常巨大，結(jié)果招來了美國證券交易委員會的調(diào)查，該事件依然未得到解決。隨后在2月，GE公布了美國司法部對WMC Mortgage的調(diào)查，并于4月宣布撥備15億美元。5月，GE表示可能會讓WMC進入破產(chǎn)程序。

Perhaps his favorite theme is the need to fix the GE culture. “Culture—you’ve heard me say it a hundred times,” he told investors. “Inside the business they’ve heard it a lot. “He’s explicit that GE needs more “rigor” and “accountability—outcomes matter. Effort’s good, outcomes matter.”

Flannery (who declined an interview request) is describing a company that doesn’t execute. In GE Power, he says, “we have exacerbated the market situation with some really poor execution.” Executives who worked with Immelt say he appreciated the importance of execution but felt it was a self-sustaining core competency. “Jeff assumed early on that this company is phenomenal at operational execution and will continue no matter what,” says one. “That was a fatal mistake.”

The most surprising element in Flannery’s critique of the culture he inherited is that it needs “more candor, more debate, more pushback.” Really—more candor? At GE? The place has long been famous as a company where frankness borders on rudeness. An Immelt spokesman says “there was a lot of pushback” in meetings with Immelt. Yet Flannery harps on the point, and executives who worked with Immelt voice the same concern. “Jeff just didn’t listen to his subordinates,” says a former finance executive. “Pushback went away under Jeff,” says a former staff member. “When the top guy is the smartest guy in the world, you’ve got a real problem.”

Jeff Immelt is a big, affable, charming man. People tend to like him. He grew up in Cincinnati, where his father was a manager in GE’s aircraft engine business, though Jeff says that fact didn’t influence his decision to work at GE. Dartmouth recruited him as a football player in the nonglamorous position of offensive tackle, and he thought he might one day play professionally. Schoolmates saw him as a leader; he was president of his fraternity, and one of his fraternity brothers, former Vanguard CEO Bill McNabb, says no one was surprised when Immelt became GE’s chief.

After college he returned to Cincinnati for a job in Procter & Gamble’s famous brand management program. Seated next to him was future Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer; they worked on Duncan Hines cake mix, and Immelt often recalls with a laugh that they were “horrible employees.” They must not have been too bad. A couple of years later, Immelt went to Harvard Business School and then to GE, where he started as an internal marketing consultant at headquarters.

When he became CEO, he faced the task that confronts every new GE boss: remaking the company. By tradition, the former chief executive leaves the board and leaves the building, giving the new captain free rein to set GE’s direction. Immelt’s changes included two that urgently needed doing. He immediately started making GE more global. Surprisingly for such a big, famous company, it was still doing 60% of its business in the U.S. By the time Immelt left, GE was operating in 180 countries and getting 61% of its revenue from outside the U.S.; annual revenue from emerging markets expanded from $10 billion to $45 billion. Some analysts complain that in certain markets, especially China, much of that new business was bought at too high a price. But the locus of global economic growth was moving, and GE needed to follow it.

Rank 18

2017 Company Profile: General Electric.

Revenues：$122.3 Billion

Profits：-$5.8 Billion?

Employees：313,000

Total return to shareholders ：-3.8%*

*Total Return to Shareholders assumes the 2007–2017 Annual Rate.

Immelt’s other major response to a mega?trend was making GE more digital. It’s obvious in retrospect, but seven years ago the digital opportunities for a big industrial company weren’t so clear. Analysts praise Immelt for prescience, though again they fault the execution. “They were early in figuring out the value of data to indus?trial businesses,” says analyst Heymann, “but it was dramatically more expensive than envisioned.” In 2015 Immelt even said that GE would be a top 10 software company by 2020. No one expects that anymore, and the company is laying off more than 100 employees at its San Ramon, Calif., software operation. The concept, however, was clearly correct, and GE moved in the right direction. Flannery says, “We’re still deeply committed to [digital], but we want a much more focused strategy.”

Many of these changes happened in the aftermath of the financial crisis, and investors mostly liked what they saw. GE stock tracked the S&P 500’s steady march upward. When GE fell behind in 2015, Immelt confidently predicted the company would earn $2 a share in 2018, a big increase. Activist investor Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund bought a $2.5 billion stake. Peltz is well known for holding leaders of his portfolio companies accountable, and Immelt was on the hook to deliver $2 a share in 2018. The stock resumed its rise. But the lug nuts were loosening. Late in 2016, the world began to notice.

What it noticed first was cash. GE was spending far more than it was generating. The company could pay its bills, but its cushion was getting thin, and heavy cash requirements loomed, such as restocking a pension fund that was underfunded by billions. From 2015 through 2017, GE generated about $30 billion from free cash flow and asset sales, but it spent about $75 billion on stock buybacks, dividends, and acquisitions. As economist Herb Stein famously observed, if something can’t go on forever, it will stop. GE was headed for a brick wall.

The next thing the world noticed was the magnitude of the trouble unfolding at GE Power. As recently as late May of 2017, Immelt was telling Wall Street the operating profit outlook for GE Power was “++,” meaning very positive. Just two months later, GE reported that Power’s quarterly profit was down, orders were down, and the outlook wasn’t good. As the year progressed, it got worse.

The cascade of grim news accelerated. After GE halved the dividend in November, it announced in December that 12,000 GE Power employees would be axed. In January it wrote off $6.2 billion in connection with a long-term-care insurance business in GE Capital and said that business would require another $15 billion of write-offs over the next seven years. The charge was so big and unexpected that the SEC opened an investigation, still unresolved. Then, in February, GE revealed the Justice Department investigation into WMC Mortgage and in April announced its $1.5 billion reserve. In May it said it might put WMC into bankruptcy.

這些負面驚喜終于結(jié)束了嗎？沒人知道。伊梅爾特2018年股價增長2美元的目標已經(jīng)早就被人忘卻（華爾街一致預測將上漲0.94美元）。取而代之的是弗蘭納里所提出的目標，而這一目標幾乎是低調(diào)到了極點：“讓公司恢復現(xiàn)金和盈利創(chuàng)造能力?！?

這個答案回答了我們提出的第一個問題“GE怎么了？”。第二個問題“未來會怎么樣？”則取決于GE將以何種形式來拆分。其照明和火車相關(guān)的業(yè)務(wù)以及一些小型業(yè)務(wù)部門已公開對外出售。如果拆分到此為止，那么這個GE也還是我們所熟知的GE，涵蓋電力、航空和醫(yī)療業(yè)務(wù)。盡管醫(yī)療和航空部門的業(yè)務(wù)依然順風順水，但考慮到GE Power業(yè)績的下滑，要想修復這三駕馬車，并使之成為一家充滿活力的公司，GE需要花費數(shù)年的功夫。

然而，一些投資者，尤其是Trian，可能沒有耐心等待那么長的時間。Trian的愛德華·蓋登于去年10月加入GE董事會，而Trian公司因其推動其資產(chǎn)組合公司的分拆而聞名。1月，弗蘭納里明確提到了拆分這一做法，而且對于外界的各種揣測也是聽之任之。如果三架馬車中的一架遭到拆分，那么我們所熟知的GE將不復存在。這家公司的名稱肯定不會有變化，但其內(nèi)涵將消亡。美國國際電話電報公司便是這一方面的前車之鑒，該公司曾是一家龐大的國際化企業(yè)巨頭，如今卻被拆分成了眾多零散部門，各自等待著被吞并和進一步拆分。

說到消亡，當前面臨最大危險的是“GE管理有方”的口碑。與公司的大多數(shù)特色不一樣的是，這一口碑有其起始日期：1900年4月24日，當時《華爾街日報》稱，“GE如今成為了投資者心目中管理最完善的工業(yè)公司之一”。這一美譽經(jīng)歷了無數(shù)的經(jīng)濟跌宕，然而卻在過去10年的某一個時段出現(xiàn)了問題。如今已是行將就木。

這一飽經(jīng)風霜的企業(yè)品牌是否能夠東山再起已經(jīng)成為了GE所面臨的最大問題。公司并不存在生存危機，而是存在更高層面的顧慮，那就是為公司確立正確的發(fā)展方向。其結(jié)果關(guān)乎這家超凡的公司是否能夠重拾昔日風采，還是最終淪為平庸。（財富中文網(wǎng)）

本文最初發(fā)表于《財富》2018年6月1日刊。

譯者：馮豐

審校：夏林

Are the bad surprises finally over? No one has the faintest idea. Immelt’s goal of $2 EPS in 2018 is long forgotten (Wall Street’s consensus forecast is $0.94). In its place is Flannery’s stated goal, which is almost pathetically modest: “restoring the oxygen of cash and earnings to the company.”

That answers our first question, What happened? The answer to the second—What’s next?—depends on the various pieces into which GE is disassembled. Its lighting and train-related businesses plus some smaller units are publicly for sale. If that’s as far as it goes, a still recognizable GE would remain, comprising the power, aviation, and health care businesses. Rehabbing that troika into a thriving company would be a multiyear effort because of GE Power’s decline; the health care and aviation units are doing well.

But some investors, especially Trian, might not want to wait so long. Trian’s Ed Garden joined the GE board in October, and Trian is well known for often urging the breakup of its portfolio companies. In January Flannery explicitly raised the option of a breakup and has said nothing to dampen speculation. If even one of the three main businesses were to be separated from the others, GE as we know it would end. An entity by that name would surely persist, but its meaning would be lost. The analog would be ITT, once an imposing global conglomerate, now an assortment of diminished pieces on their own journeys of merging and subdividing.

Most in danger of extinction is GE’s reputation as a superbly managed company. Unlike most marks of character, this one has a start date: April 24, 1900, when the Wall Street Journal declared, “General Electric is entitled now to take rank as one of the?…?best managed industrial companies known to investors.” That reputation survived economic ups and downs until sometime in the past decade. It’s now on life support.

Whether its storied corporate brand can be revived has become the largest question about GE. The company faces no crisis of survival. Its main businesses will likely carry on in some form. The tension surrounding the company is of a higher nature, befitting GE. It’s whether this extraordinary company will regain its lost luster or descend, at last, to mediocrity.

This article originally appeared in the June 1, 2018 issue of Fortune.