We are witnessing, real time, the not-so-slow bankrupting of an American icon GE by the European business model because GE stupidly bought an enormous, bankrupt, bloated, corporate welfare state called Alstom. GE buying Alstom was like a cheetah eating an elephant. It has taken a few years, but the reaper is now calling. In the power division, Alstom has dozens of empty factories, 10’s of thousands of heads with little or no work, no profit, no sales. Alstom lied about their steam turbine product costs, margins, factory orders, profit, project profitability and forgot to disclose the 10’s and 100’s of millions in secret charging accounts used to cover up factory over-capacity in order to make projects look profitable. Former Alstom was a shell game, a fake business, keep-the-European-masses-employed welfare corporation. Now its GE’s problem.
GE leadership needs to wake up, fast, and correct the problem. Take re-structuring money from corporate, pay the European works council fines and cut most of the bloated, inefficient European workforce. Former Alstom divisions should be cut and already empty factories closed. Former Alstom executives the ran the bankrupt Alstom business that we placed in GE leadership positions should be excused. Cut the cancer out from the core. We don’t have long…immediate action is needed now.
Yes, you folks in Aviation, healthcare, transportation, etc are all affected by the monumental mistake of buying Alstom, and you are feeling it now.
John Flannery said it himself on the Invertor call, Alstom was a disappointment…now that the problem has been admitted…it’s time to fix the problem.