General Electric's (GE) Power Unit Upgrades Najibiya Plant

General Electric Company’s (NYSE:GE) Power segment recently upgraded the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity’s Najibiya Power Plant by installing Advanced Gas Path (AGP) gas turbine upgrade solution.

The solution is designed to increase the duration between the maintenance inspections of the gas turbines, which will reduce the downtime of the turbines. The solution aims to cater the country’s growing energy requirements by improving availability as well as performance of the plant. This will be achieved by enabling each gas turbine to feed power into the national grid for longer periods. This will lower annual operational and maintenance costs.

GE Power’s solution will enable the plant to leverage the existing power generation infrastructure optimally.

Apart from delivering the AGP solution, GE Power is also supplying parts, repairs and services to the Najibiya Power Plant. This is in addition to round-the-clock on-site monitoring services for the gas turbines in the facility, which prevent faults and unplanned downtime.

GE Power is the biggest segment of the conglomerate in terms of corporate revenues. However, the unit has been a drag on earnings in the last few quarters, as global demand increasingly favours renewable energy sources. Also, overcapacity, lower utilization and fewer outages are other factors that are hurting demand. In 2017, John Flannery, GE’s CEO, assured investors that energy, aviation and healthcare will continue to be the focal points of GE’s operations.

It has been nearly five months since Flannery outlined his plan to divest more than $20 billion of assets.

Earlier this week, GE inked an agreement to sell a trio of its health-care information technology businesses to private equity firm Veritas Capital for $1.05 billion. The deal marks one of the first notable portfolio-related moves since Flannery announced the plan to exit at least $20 billion of businesses. However, he has indicated at the possibility of the company’s disintegration into separately-traded businesses.

The overhaul, coupled with cost cuts and cultural changes, encompass Flannery’s attempts to pull GE out of one of the deepest slumps in its 126-year history. The company’s shares have lost 45.7% in the past six months alone, much wider than the industry’s decline of 12.6%.

GE is not the only industrial giant which is contemplating breaking its conglomerate structure. Per recent reports, United Technologies Corporation (NYSE:UTX) is considering such a move too. German player Siemens AG (OTC:SIEGY) recently offloaded a part of its Healthineers medical imaging business through an IPO worth $5.2 billion.

Zacks Rank & Stock to Consider

General Electric carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

A better-ranked stock in the same space is Leucadia National Corporation (NYSE:LUK) , sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Leucadia National has beaten estimates in three of the trailing four quarters, the average earnings surprise being 6.6%.

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