COVID-19 challenged first-quarter results; taking swift action to mitigate impact and solidify financial position

BOSTON — April 29, 2020 — GE (NYSE:GE) announced results today for the first quarter ending March 31, 2020.

GE Chairman and CEO H. Lawrence Culp, Jr. said, “During this unprecedented pandemic, the GE team is focused on protecting the safety of our employees and communities, serving customers in their critical time of need, and preserving our strength for the long term. GE is delivering critical infrastructure and services across the globe, including our teams at Healthcare supporting caregivers who diagnose and treat COVID-19 patients every day."

Culp continued, “The impact from COVID-19 materially challenged our first-quarter results, especially in Aviation, where we saw a dramatic decline in commercial aerospace as the virus spread globally in March. We are targeting more than $2 billion in operational cost out and $3 billion of cash preservation to mitigate the financial impact, and we executed a series of actions to de-risk and de-lever our balance sheet amid a challenging environment. While there are many unknowns, there will be another side—planes will fly again, healthcare will normalize and modernize, and the world still needs more efficient, resilient energy. We're embracing today's reality and accelerating our multi-year transformation to make GE a stronger, nimbler, and more valuable company."

Read the full results on GE’s Investor Relations website.

Please visit our investor website for full information:

Caution Concerning Forward Looking Statements

This release and certain of our other public communications and SEC filings may contain statements related to future, not past, events. These forward-looking statements often address our expected future business and financial performance and financial condition, and often contain words such as "expect," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "believe," "seek," "see," "will," "would," "estimate," "forecast," "target," "preliminary," or "range." Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain, such as statements about the potential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business operations, financial results and financial position and on the world economy; our expected financial performance, including cash flows, revenues, organic growth, margins, earnings and earnings per share; macroeconomic and market conditions and volatility; planned and potential business or asset dispositions; our de-leveraging plans, including leverage ratios and targets, the timing and nature of actions to reduce indebtedness and our credit ratings and outlooks; GE's and GE Capital's funding and liquidity; our businesses’ cost structures and plans to reduce costs; restructuring, goodwill impairment or other financial charges; or tax rates.

For us, particular uncertainties that could cause our actual results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements include:

These or other uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements.

This release includes certain forward-looking projected financial information that is based on current estimates and forecasts, and actual results could differ materially. Refer also to the webcast of our investor conference later this morning for additional discussion of our outlook and uncertainties that could cause our future results to be different than our current expectations.

General Electric Capital Corporation (GECC) has been merged into GE and our financial services business is now operated by GE Capital Global Holdings, LLC (GECGH). In our public communications and SEC filings, we refer to GECC and GECGH as “GE Capital”. We refer to the industrial businesses of the Company including GE Capital on an equity basis as “GE”. “GE (ex-GE Capital)” and /or “Industrial” refer to GE excluding GE Capital. Our financial services segment previously referred to as GE Capital is now referred to as Capital.

GE’s Investor Relations website at www.ge.com/investor and our corporate blog at www.gereports.com, as well as GE’s Facebook page and Twitter accounts, contain a significant amount of information about GE, including financial and other information for investors. GE encourages investors to visit these websites from time to time, as information is updated and new information is posted.

Additional Financial Information

Additional financial information can be found on the Company’s website at: www.ge.com/investor under Events and Reports.

Conference Call and Webcast

GE will discuss its results during its investor conference call today starting at 8:00 a.m. ET. The conference call will be broadcast live via webcast, and the webcast and accompanying slide presentation containing financial information can be accessed by visiting the Events and Reports page on GE’s website at: www.ge.com/investor. An archived version of the webcast will be available on the website after the call.