BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : JANUARY 10, 2000 ISSUE
COVER STORY Live Wire Welch KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS Profits should rise 15%, to $11 billion, on sales up 10%, to $110 billion With shares up 56%, to about 160, three-for-one stock split just announced When JOHN F. WELCH casually remarked last year that he will step down as chairman and CEO of General Electric (GE) in 2001, the news generated the kind of glowing comments usually saved for end-of-life assessments. Quipped the 64-year-old Welch: ''It's great to be alive and read your own obituary.'' But in the year of the dot.com, the man many regard as the CEO of the Century is still delivering record results. Driven by Welch's push into services, finance, and global markets, GE should again rack up double-digit sales and earnings growth. That's quite a feat for a $100 billion-plus sales behemoth. GE is truly firing on all cylinders. Its engine unit landed a $100 million deal to develop a new engine for Boeing's longer-range aircraft. Its medical systems group inked a five-year $1.5 billion equipment and servicing pact with Columbia/HCA. GE Capital, the world's largest nonbank finance company, boasts investments in 45 e-business companies. And NBC has allied with a host of Net players to capitalize on the convergence of the media, entertainment, and technology industries. But that's only the most obvious part of Welch's all-out push to embrace the Internet. His e-commerce initiative is already transforming the way GE interacts with customers. The company now sells everything from home mortgages to highly sophisticated medical-imaging machines via the Net. Welch's biggest job this year, however, will be naming a successor. Whoever it turns out to be, Jack Welch's replacement will have one hard act to follow. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS INTRODUCTION MANAGERS TO WATCH THE TOP ENTREPRENEURS THE TOP 25 MANAGERS Minuro Arakawa Bernard Arnault Arthur Blank Peter Bijur Gordon Binder Steve Case John Chambers James Curvey Thierry Desmarest Bernie Ebbers Tom Engibous Chris Gent Irwin Jacobs Steve Jobs Mel Karmazin James Kelly Timothy Koogle Ken Lay Jenny Ming Thomas Siebel Masayoshi Son Martha Stewart Keiji Tachikawa Jack Welch Yun Jong Yong ONLINE EXTRAS TO BUSINESS WEEK INVESTOR INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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