Keith S. Sherin
Analyst · Barclays Capital
Thanks, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. I'm going to start with the fourth quarter summary. We had continuing operations revenues in the quarter of $38 billion. They were down 8%. Industrial sales of $26.7 billion were reported down 7%. However, if you look at the notes at the bottom of the page, excluding the impact of not having the NBC revenues last year, GE's Industrial sales were up 11%. Financial Services revenues of 11.6% were down 9%. That was driven by our lower assets year-over-year mostly. Operating earnings of $4.1 billion were up 6% and operating earnings per share of $0.39 were up 11%, reflecting the benefit of retiring the preferred shares. Continuing earnings per share includes the impact of the non-operating pension and net earnings per share includes the impact of discontinued operations, and that reflects a $0.02 charge this year, which I'm going to cover on the next page and also on a comparison basis, the non-repeat of the net $0.06 of gains we had last year in discontinued operations. Our cash for the year of $12.1 billion was very strong. We had a great fourth quarter and the total year and Jeff covered that. For taxes, in the fourth quarter, our tax rates were 15% for GE, excluding GE Capital. The GE Capital rate was 4% and those rates include about $0.03 of benefit from our IRS audit resolution for the years 2006 and 2007, and I'll go into a little more detail on that on the next page. So those amounts put us right in line with our third quarter outlook for tax rates for GE and GE Capital. The consolidated GE rate ended the year at 29%. The GE rate, excluding GE Capital, was 38% and that includes the impact of the NBCU gain from the first quarter. If you exclude that, the GE rate was 19% for the year. That's up 2 points over last year. And the GE Capital rate for the year came in at 12% and that rate's up significantly from 2010 as a result of our significantly higher pretax income. As you look forward for 2012, I would estimate our GE rate to be somewhere in the low 20% range and the GE Capital rate to be somewhere in the mid-teens range for 2012. On the right side, you can see the segment results. Industrial revenues were up 10%. Industrial segment profit was up 2%. That was driven by Transportation and Aviation. You can see Energy was flat and that's a big improvement versus the 3Q year-to-date results. Healthcare was down slightly and Home & Business Solutions continue to be negatively impacted by the housing market. Down at the bottom, GE Capital had another strong quarter with earnings up 58% and I'm going to go into each of the segments in more detail in a few pages. Before I get to the businesses, I will start with the other items page. As we mentioned during third quarter, we were in negotiation for final resolution of the 2006, 2007 tax years with the IRS. We did reach a resolution on several tax matters for those 2 years that resulted in $0.03 of benefit in the fourth quarter. And in terms of geography, $0.01 of that was in Industrial and $0.02 of that were recorded in GE Capital. So overall, a $0.03 benefit at the end of the year from that resolution. We also had some one-time costs in Q4. We had a little more than $0.02 related to restructuring. We reduced the cost structure in Energy, Healthcare and GE Capital. We also had almost $0.01 of one-time costs related to this year's acquisitions as we've had throughout the year. So if you look at where these were recorded, the charges were recorded at corporate. On an after-tax basis, we have $78 million in Energy, $58 million in Healthcare, $28 million in GE Capital and then Aviation, H&BS, Transportation and corporate all had about $15 million of restructuring as we work on lowering our cost base as we go into 2012. On the bottom of the page, we did an update on Grey Zone reserves in the fourth quarter. While the claims have declined significantly from the peak that we saw in the first quarter of 2011, we did see an uptick in September. Then we saw declines in October through December. Based on the 2011 activity, we've updated our long-term claims reduction assumption. We had set this at 4% in the third quarter of 2010 and we reduced it this quarter by about 1 point. So if you include the current claim severity as well as the claims assumption adjustment, it resulted in a $243 million addition to the reserves in the fourth quarter. We end the year with $692 million of reserves and we expect the claims to continue to decline. The December claims were down and we will have to obviously monitor and communicate where we are in Grey Zone going forward, but the trends feel good based on where we are at the end of the fourth quarter. One other point that is not on the page as we discussed in the first quarter earnings, we did have 6 more days in Q1 2011 versus Q1 2010 and that's just based on our fiscal calendar. That helped us by about $0.01 EPS in the first quarter. In the fourth quarter, we had the opposite effect. We had 6 fewer days in the fourth quarter of '11 versus '10 and that impact was about $1 billion of lower revenue and about $0.01 less EPS in the fourth quarter and so we also absorbed that impact. Next, I want to cover 2 reporting updates for you. On the left side, we're in the process of merging GE Capital Services into GE Capital Corporation, so that we end up with one SEC registrant for Financial Services. Basically, the current reporting for GE Capital Services will become the going-forward reporting for all of GE Capital Corporation. Those results at GE Capital Services will be the segment GE Capital that we use with investors that will be what Mike Neal and the team run. There won't be 2 organizations. We think this is a big simplification. It will be effective for the first quarter earnings and we're going to file an 8-K today outlining this merger. So there's no change in the fourth quarter or how we're reporting GE Capital until the first quarter and going forward, we'll have one consistent Financial Services entity. So I look forward to getting to just reporting GE Capital and having it be the total enterprise. On the right side, we completed an internal reorganization in October. We moved the responsibility for the measurement and controls business run by Brian Palmer over to Dan Heintzelman in the Oil & Gas business. You can see the financial size here, $4 billion of revenue, $600 million of op profit on a total year basis and the details of this move are in the supplemental materials that we released this morning. We moved this business because it reflects the customer alignment for the M&CS business. It's much more aligned with the Oil & Gas base. It's going to give us more scale. In the solutions business for Oil & Gas, there is no change to the overall Energy Infrastructure segment. So this is just between Energy and Oil & Gas within the segment. And today, on the results that we'll show you, I'll give you both the before and after, so you can clearly see this impact. So 2 organization changes and I'll move on to the business results. First is Energy Infrastructure. The fourth quarter was a mixed performance. We had a terrific orders quarter, as Jeff talked about and I'll give you more details. Revenue was also very strong, but it was less than our September forecasts. We had some wind units and we had some equipment installations pushed into 2012. We also had some impact that was worse than we expected in September from the stronger dollar. Segment profit, while it was significantly better than the first 3 quarters, it was slightly less than the growth we expected and I'll cover that by business. I'm going to cover the details for Energy and Oil & Gas on the new basis as I've just covered. So you can see that down on the bottom left. However, the pre-reorganization basis is also shown on the bottom left and as I said, the supplemental data has all the details. So what I'm going to go through now is on the basis with M&CS moved into Oil & Gas. I'll start with Energy. We had another quarter of great orders growth. Orders of $11 billion were up 19%. Equipment orders at $6 billion were up 33%. They're even up 24%, excluding the impact of the acquisitions. Renewable orders at $2 billion were up 53%. We had orders for 1,023 wind turbines versus 477 a year ago. Thermal orders of $1.9 billion were up 88%. We received orders for 50 gas turbines versus 29 last year. That's a great quarter for gas turbines. Equipment orders price was down 4.4%. Renewables pricing was down 4.9%. Thermal pricing was down 12.5%. If you look at the combined thermal and Power Gen Services orders price impact, it was down 5.5% and service pricing was flat. Service orders in the quarter $5 billion were up 6%. When you look at the top line, revenue of $9.2 billion was up 11%. That's driven by the strong volume we had and the acquisition benefit. Organic revenue in Energy was up 6%. Equipment revenue of $5 billion was up 15%. That was driven by renewables, so $1.6 billion was up 15%. We shipped 688 wind turbines versus 592 last year. That was a little short of our goal if you look at what we put out for the third quarter. As we expected for the total year, we had some slip. End market revenue was up 57%. Aero revenue was up 14% and that growth was partially offset by thermal revenues of $1.3 billion. It was down 3%. We had higher volume of gas turbines, 33 this year versus 18 last year, but that was more than offset by having lower balance of plant revenue, items that are produced by other parties that we don't make, but we include the project and also the lower pricing. Service revenue, about $4.1 billion was up 7%. And for the quarter, segment profit of $1.7 billion was down 3% as the benefits of the higher volume and material deflation were more than offset by lower pricing and negative unit mix. Now while being down 3% is a great improvement over the third quarter year-to-date results of down 20%, the main drag continued to be our wind business, which accounted for $41 million of the $44 million year-over-year op profit decrease. And I'll cover some more of the dynamics on the wind business for 2012 on the next page. For Oil & Gas, orders of $4.7 billion were up 34%. Equipment orders of $2.4 billion were up 40%, driven by the acquisitions, plus strong refinery and petrochemical orders. Service orders of $2.3 billion were up 29% on strong drilling and production activity. Oil & Gas orders price index was a positive 2/10 in the quarter. Revenue of $4.1 billion was up 38%, again driven by the impact of the acquisitions. Excluding acquisitions, the revenue was up 6%. Segment profit of $630 million was up 12%. That's driven by the acquisitions plus strong volume, partially offset by negative productivity across the business. So overall, when you look at Energy Infrastructure, a significantly improved earnings profile as we exit 2011. Now I thought it’d be helpful to give you a little more detail on the Energy plan for 2012. On this chart, we ended the year with $6.7 billion of op profit. Our plan is to grow double digit 2012 and you can see the drivers on the right side. First, we have an incredibly strong equipment backlog. Energy equipment orders of $25.5 billion were up 39% last year. We're planning on double-digit growth in the equipment deliveries and you can see the huge growth in wind and aero volume down on the bottom left that's in the business plan for 2012. For services, our service orders were $22.8 billion, up 9% for 2011. Our service backlog stands at $50 billion. So we should expect a good services year in Energy. We invested a lot in new products and in growth. We’ve peaked in terms of our program and growth investments as a percent of revenue. So that's not going to be a drag on margins for Energy and we'll get a full year of the acquisition earnings. So those 4 factors more than offset the price pressure that we already have in the backlog and that we've talked about quite a bit. So the Energy teams work through the toughest part of the earnings cycle, mainly driven by the 2011 wind margin declines and we're looking forward to delivering double-digit earnings growth in 2012. Next is Aviation. The Aviation team had another solid quarter in the fourth quarter. Orders of $6.9 billion were up 18%. Commercial engine orders of $3.3 billion were up 67%, driven by the GE90. Military engine orders of $402 million were up 53%, driven by foreign military orders. Equipment orders price was up 1.9% and we ended the quarter with a backlog of $22.5 million, up 12% versus last year. Service orders of $2.7 billion were down 9%. Military services were down 41%, driven by lower F110 spares. And Commercial Services were up 1%, driven by higher overall activity -- overhaul activity, partially offset by a lower spares rate. The fourth quarter spares order rate was $22.3 million a day, down 11% and that reflects the aggressive purchasing that we saw in the third quarter in advance of the November price increase. If you look at the total year average daily order rate for our spares, it was $24.7 million, up 13% over 2010 and the team feels very confident about the current spares rate and how they're doing in the marketplace commercially. Revenue of $4.9 billion, that was up 2%, driven by equipment, up 3% and services, up 2%. We shipped 518 commercial engines in the quarter. That was down 7 engines from last year, but revenues were up 10% on more GE90 units, and we shipped 34 GEnx units in the quarter. Segment profit of $850 million was up 4%. That's driven by the strong volume and the positive value gap in the business. On the right side, Transportation. The Transportation team continued delivering strong results in the fourth quarter. Orders of $1.2 billion were down 11%. That's driven by the tough comparisons. Equipment orders of $500 million were down 43% because of no repeat of last year's $550 million multiyear orders. So the orders still in the backlog, but it's a tough comparison. Service orders of $739 million were up 57%. That's driven by the growth in our long-term service agreements and orders pricing for Transportation was up 1.2%. Revenue in the quarter, $1.5 billion was up 43%, driven by all the strong volume. We shipped 210 locomotives domestically versus 86 in the fourth quarter last year. We shipped 48 international units versus 30 last year and mining revenues were also up almost 40% on higher volume. Service revenues were up over 30% on strong long-term agreement. Performance and segment profit of $226 million was up more than 200%, driven by all that strong volume and the services delivery. Next is Healthcare. We did see a slowdown in the developed markets in Q4 for Healthcare. Orders of $5.2 billion were flat. Equipment orders of $3.2 billion were up 1%. Diagnostic Imaging overall globally was down 2%. Clinical Systems was up 5%. Life Sciences was up 3%. If you go by geography, U.S. Equipment was down 7% and non-U.S. Equipment was up 6% and here are some of the pieces. Europe was down 13%. That was the toughest market. China was up 29%. India was up 20%. Latin America was up 6%. Service orders of $2.1 billion were down 1% and the total orders price for the business was down 1.9%. Revenue of $5.2 billion was up 1%. That was really driven by the emerging markets, which were up 16%, partially offset by the declines in Europe and the U.S. Segment profit of $953 million was down 5% as the benefits of the higher volume and productivity were more than offset by negative pricing and the continued investments we're making in the new business like Intel Home Health JV and also new products. On the right side of the page, H&BS had another tough quarter. Revenues of $2.2 billion were down 4%. Segment profit of $82 million was down 41%. These results were driven by appliances. The domestic market was down 12% units in the quarter. We gained 7/10 point of share in the quarter, but the inflation we saw was only partially offset by pricing, resulting in the overall segment profit decline. Lighting revenues were down 1%, driven by Europe and Intelligent Platforms revenues were up 4%, driven by strong software growth. And let me shift to GE Capital. Mike Neal and the Capital team had a really good quarter. Revenues of $10.7 billion were down 9%, in line with our NE shrinkage, plus the impact of the fewer days. Pretax and after-tax earnings continue to rebound. On the right side, asset quality metrics showed continued improvements or stability. We had $49 billion of volume in the quarter, which was up 13% from Q3. Our margins came in at 5.4% for the year. We continue to beat our ending investment targets and there's a lot more information about GE Capital in the supplemental charts on reserve coverage in non-earnings that we posted this morning. So just a few highlights by business. I'll start with Consumer. The Consumer business had another positive earnings quarter. We ended the year with assets of $139 billion. That was down 6%. Net income of $575 million was up 5% and that was driven by the improved credit costs. U.S. Retail Finance had a great quarter. They earned $463 million, which was up 29%, driven by some acquisitions. We added some portfolios and also lowered credit costs. The U.S. Retail Finance volume was strong. It was up 3% over last year and it was up 14% versus the third quarter. For Europe, we had net income of $111 million. That was down 35%, but it was driven by not having the Garanti earnings that we used to have since we sold our stake there. We also had $63 million of after-tax impairments on our Greek bonds and that brings the net book value of our Greek holdings down to about $74 million. Our U.K. Home Lending business earned $89 million in the quarter, good performance on asset quality. 30-day delinquencies were down 97 basis points versus Q3. Our owned real estate stock was down to 461 houses, and that's the lowest we've had since 2005. And on the houses that we did repossess and sold, we realized 115% of the carrying value on our sales in the fourth quarter, so pretty good marks and valuation. Next is Real Estate. Commercial Real Estate had another quarter with significant improvements over last year. Assets of $61 billion were down $12 billion or 16% versus last year and they were also down $4 billion or 6% versus the third quarter. So we continue to work this book down. The business ended Q4 with $153 million of losses after tax. That was $256 million better than last year. During the quarter, we incurred $64 million of after-tax credit costs and $168 million of after-tax marks and impairments. And also during the quarter, a bright spot I'd say, we sold 157 properties for $1.9 billion, realizing $132 million in after-tax gains. So there -- as you see in the press, there is more liquidity in the commercial real estate market, and our business is benefiting from that. As Jeff mentioned on the front page, our unrealized loss on the equity portfolio was down to $2.6 billion and the outlook is that Real Estate is going to continue to deliver a strong improved performance in 2012. Commercial Lending & Leasing also had another strong quarter. Assets of $194 billion were down 4% due to the run-off of some non-core assets and dispositions. Net income of $777 million was up 37%. That's driven by lower losses and higher core income. Americas’ net income of $570 million was up 42%, driven by lower credit costs and that's their best quarter that they've had in 4 years. Europe and Asia were both down a bit, driven by lower assets. GECAS. GECAS fourth quarter is actually better than it looks. You can see here net income of $315 million is reported down 27%, but that included the impact last year of $167 million of tax benefits from the IRS settlement we had last year in the fourth quarter. There were no such benefits allocated to GECAS this year. So if you look on a normalized basis, net earnings would have been about 19% up, driven by continued improvements in core margin. Asset quality remained strong here. We ended the quarter -- ended the year with 2 aircraft on the ground, so another good year for GECAS. And Energy Financial Services also had a strong quarter. Earnings of $110 million were up 234%, driven by higher core income and higher gains. So overall, another very strong performance by GE Capital, and let me turn it back to Jeff.