Sales and profits slide for GE Healthcare

General Electric (NYSE:GE) said today that sales and profits  in its GE Healthcare division slid for both the 4th quarter and full-year 2015, as the industrial conglomerate’s overall sales missed expectations, sending share prices down today.

GE Healthcare posted profits of $938 million on sales of $4.97 billion during the 3 months ended Dec. 31, 2015, for a bottom-line slide of -8.0% on a -3.1% sales decline compared with Q4 2014.

Full-year profits were $2.88 billion for the healthcare business on sales of $17.64 billion, representing declines of -5.4% and -3.6%, respectively, compared with 2014.

GE, which is in the middle of a retooling that saw it shed its GE Capital finance arm and lay plans to relocate its headquarters from Fairfield, Conn., to Boston, said overall Q4 profits were up 22% to $6.28 billion, or 64¢ per share, from $5.15 billion, or 51¢ per share. Revenue rose 1.4% to $33.89 billion, missing analysts’ consensus forecast for $35.7 billion.

But excluding 1-time items, adjusted earnings per share were 52¢, ahead of the consensus expectation of 49¢. GE maintained its forecast for adjusted EPS of $1.45 to $1.55 this year.

“GE executed well in a slow-growth environment. For 2015, we accomplished all of the goals we outlined for investors,” chairman & CEO Jeff Immelt said in prepared remarks. “We recognize that the 1st few weeks of 2016 have been especially volatile. However, our orders in the 4th quarter grew 1% organically and our backlog grew to $315 billion with Alstom. We believe in the strength of our business model and that there is enough growth out there to deliver in 2016.”

Shares fell less than -1% to $28.40 in pre-market trading and were down -1.8% to $28.09 each in mid-morning activity.

Material from Reuters was used in this report.

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