GE beats Wall Street forecasts as it refocuses on industry

NEW YORK — Industrial conglomerate General Electric Co. on Friday reported a decline in third-quarter profit, but strong performances from its core units helped the company top Wall Street expectations.

General Electric has been making a push to focus on industrial businesses — making large, complicated equipment for other companies — and shrinking its other businesses that focus on finance. The largest change involves selling most of GE Capital’s assets, including $26.5 billion in real estate assets.

The Fairfield, Conn., company said profit fell 29% to $2.5 billion, or 25 cents a share. Revenue fell 1% to $31.7 billion.

Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs and to account for discontinued operations, came to 32 cents a share. Earnings including the GE Capital businesses that the company is keeping amounted to 29 cents a share. That topped Wall Street expectations with the average estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research for earnings of 26 cents a share.

During the quarter, the company’s power and water division saw revenue rise 1% to $6.5 billion. The unit, which makes power generators and related equipment, is the industrial core’s largest revenue driver. Revenue rose 5% to $6 billion in the aviation unit. Transportation revenue rose 3% to $1.6 billion and revenue rose 8% to $2.3 billion in the appliances unit.

The oil and gas unit continues to be weighed down by low oil prices. Revenue fell 16% to $3.9 billion.

In a statement, Chairman Jeff Immelt said the company’s exit plan for GE Capital is ahead of plan. Including the recently announced sale of $30 billion in commercial lending assets, the company has $126 billion in total signed deals to date, he said.

The stock rose 42 cents, or 1.5%, to $28.42 in morning trading Friday.

GE shares have climbed 11% since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has dropped roughly 2%. The stock has increased 15% in the last 12 months