Today’s meeting may be a high point for Erie, but the company's investors may not have such positive feelings.
GE’s first-quarter earnings report, released two weeks ago, showed profits falling 6 percent to $4.3 billion. The first-quarter earnings report last year showed profits of $4.57 billion.
This has put some pressure on the man at the top, General Electric Chief Executive Jeff Immelt, including an apparent threat from the former CEO, Jack Welch (who later retracted the statement.)
The Associated Press wrote of today's meeting Monday:
Peter Sorrentino, an analyst at Huntington Asset Advisors in Cincinnati, said shareholders will likely demand from Immelt explanations that go beyond the usual concerns and complaints raised at annual meetings"Something like why this thing isn't firing on all cylinders," he said.
Immelt just took a volley of questions from the national press during a short press conference in the media room of the Bayfront Convention Center. The big questions were about the economy's effect on the company, selling off the company's assets and how pleased Immelt was with leadership within the company.
He responded to most of the questions by saying he is confident in the company and is ready to rebuild any trust lost with investors. During his stay as CEO, he said, the company has gone through a volatile portfolio shift -- buying and selling companies worth billions of dollars -- and that to work for GE, you just have to perform.
He knows that goes for him, as well.
"You don't take this job if you can't take a punch," he said.
Times-News reporter Jim Martin also took a look at what might happen today at the meeting -- and said that Immelt still has local support for his work with the company's transportation division in Lawrence Park.
-- Cody Switzer
(Immelt, by the way, left the room chuckling. "Take a punch -- what a great quote," he said as he walked out the door. "Is that going to be the headline tomorrow?" a press agent said after Immelt left the room. "Take a punch?")