WASHINGTON, USA — General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt said yesterday the giant conglomerate is undergoing a renewal after what has been one of the most difficult years in the company’s 117-year history.

Immelt said in his annual outlook session for analysts in New York that GE is focusing on sectors such as energy and health care as it looks to its big industrial divisions to navigate out of the deep recession. It also plans to rely much less on its lending arm, GE Capital, for profits next year.

Yet despite the shift in strategy, GE’s forecast for 2010 shows that the effects of the recent economic crisis will linger. Overall revenues and profits are expected to be largely flat next year at GE Capital and at the industrial divisions that make jet engines, power plant turbines and medical equipment.

GE recently announced plans to eventually sell off its NBC entertainment division to Comcast, a move that will help it free up cash that Immelt said it will use to expand. He did not cite specifics, but GE expects to have up to US$26 billion in cash by the end of 2010.

The past year was one of dubious milestones for the Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE.

The financial crisis and global recession was a double blow for the conglomerate as borrowers in areas like commercial real estate defaulted on loans and strapped customers pulled back on equipment orders.

To save cash, GE was forced to slash its dividend by 68 per cent, the first cut since the Great Depression. It lost its top credit rating and issued most of its debt this year under a programme that provides government backing. Share prices swooned in the first quarter, trading around US$6 apiece before recovering somewhat in the summer and fall.

GE has made some significant changes to try to achieve stability during the turmoil.

Its new mantra for GE Capital is “safe and secure”, mance on riskier investments. It is also pursuing government stimulus money and developing markets like China as a means of finding new business for its industrial division.