General Electric (GE) on Friday reported an 8 percent drop in fourth-quarter earnings in its industrial businesses, hurt by weakness in divisions catering to the oil and gas sector.
Shares of the U.S. conglomerate, which also reported lower-than-expected total revenue, fell less than 1 percent to $28.40 in trading before the market opened.
Excluding special items, GE’s earnings of 52 cents a share beat the analysts’ average estimate of 49 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
GE maintained its 2016 adjusted industrial profit outlook of $1.45 to $1.55 a share.
The decline in industrial earnings during the quarter showed the impact of falling energy prices on GE’s large oil and gas business. Operating profit there fell to $5.52 billion from $5.99 billion a year earlier.
But revenue increases of 5 percent in aviation and 20 percent in energy management partly offset the 16 percent drop for oil and gas.
“We think the orders volumes and pricing are encouraging,” Credit Suisse analysts wrote in a note.
GE’s total net income jumped 22 percent to $6.28 billion, or 64 cents per share, from $5.15 billion, or 51 cents per share.
It included a host of one-time items, including closing the purchase of Alstom SA’s power business, separating GE’s renewable energy business from the power segment, a break-up fee for the failed sale of its appliance business to Electrolux AB and other restructuring costs.
Revenue rose 1.4 percent to $33.89 billion, below the $35.7 billion analysts had expected. (Additional reporting by Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Lisa Von Ahn)
