GE’s 2nd-Quarter Net Up 5% on 14% Revenue Rise

General Electric said its second-quarter profit edged up 5% from a year earlier on a 14% revenue gain.

The figures included one month’s worth of results of RCA, which GE acquired in June for $6.4 billion.

GE’s overall net income rose to $621 million from $590 million a year earlier. Revenue climbed to $7.79 billion from $6.84 billion.

For the first half of 1986, GE’s profit rose 5% to $1.16 billion from last year’s $1.1 billion. Six-month revenue totaled $13.67 billion, up 5% from $13.04 billion a year earlier.

RCA’s one-month contribution to GE’s earnings, before costs associated with the RCA purchase, was $36 million, and its contribution to GE’s total revenue was $803 million, the company said.

GE, based in Fairfield, Conn., is a leading producer of major appliances, industrial products, power systems and aircraft engines. But in recent years GE has made an aggressive push, in large part by making acquisitions, to expand its interests in services--notably financial services--and technology.

Two days after completing the RCA acquisition, for example, GE also bought an 80% stake in the investment banking firm Kidder, Peabody & Co.

Without providing specific figures, GE said its financial services group’s second-quarter operating profit rose “substantially” from a year earlier. Earnings from consumer and industrial products, appliances and aircraft engines were also higher.