Is GE Up Off the Ropes?
GE stock has recovered more than half its Thursday losses Friday morning following a $2 million stock purchase by CEO Larry Culp and some serious pushback against the allegations made against the company's accounting practices.
It’s pretty hard to deny that General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE | GE Price Prediction) stockholders suffered a bloodbath on Thursday. The company’s shares had dropped 11% by the closing bell, following a scathing report on the company by whistleblower Harry Markopoulos, whose prior claims to fame include toppling Bernie Madoff, Enron and WorldCom.
GE CEO Larry Culp not only fired back with a charge of “market manipulation,” but he also spent nearly $2 million of his own money to buy more than 250,000 additional shares of GE stock at $7.93 a share. At an opening price early Friday of $8.54, Culp already has gained nearly $150,000 on his investment.
In a report posted online Thursday, Markopoulos charged GE with $38 billion in accounting fraud related to its reinsurance business for long-term care (LTC) policies issued by other insurers.
In a statement, Culp said:
GE will always take any allegation of financial misconduct seriously. But this is market manipulation – pure and simple. Mr. Markopolos’s report contains false statements of fact and these claims could have been corrected if he had checked them with GE before publishing the report.
[nativounit]
In a statement issued Thursday, the company disputed Markopoulos’s allegations regarding its reserves requirement, its accounting for its majority stake in Baker Hughes, a GE Company (NYSE: BHGE) and its liquidity.
As Barron’s pointed out Friday morning, the cash drain Markopoulos alleges is coming is an investor’s biggest worry. Markopoulos claims “86% of GE’s LTC claims are ahead of them and the accompanying losses are growing at an exponential and unsurvivable rate.”
According to Markopoulos, GE needs $18.5 billion in cash essentially immediately to cover its reserve requirements, in addition to the $15 billion it already began contributing late last year. That’s the tricky bit, RBC analyst Mark Dwelle told Barron’s. Without detailed knowledge of GE’s reinsurance agreements — all of which are slightly different and remain undisclosed in full — comparing GE’s state-level filings to the filings of other insurers is like comparing a nectarine to a peach, they are close, “but they are not the same.”
In the late morning Friday, GE shares traded up about 6.3%, at $8.51 in a 52-week range of $6.40 to $13.25, and the 12-month consensus price target on the stock is $10.89.
[recirclink id=568700]
[wallst_email_signup]
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Paul Ausick has been writing for 247Wallst.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.
He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.
