NAS410 CR Level 2

Aletheian Wealth Advisors LLC invests $214,000 in GE Aerospace (NYSE:GE).

GE Aerospace: History and Legacy of InnovationGeneral Electric, or GE, started as the Edison General Electric Company in 1889 and turned into a diverse industrial conglomerate with an increasingly finance-focused outlook in the 1990s and 2000s.As part of this diversification, it entered the airplane business in 1917, when the USA entered World War I.The US government needed a company to provide its nascent Air Force with its first airplane engine “booster”: also called a turbosupercharger, installed on a piston engine, it used the engine's exhaust gases to drive an air compressor to boost power at higher altitude.GE, an energy company, has extensive experience with turbines for power plants and has transferred this expertise to plane turbines and engines.Today, the company's energy activity is gathered in the GE Vernova, which we covered in a dedicated report: “GE Vernova (GEV): Meeting the Global Surge in Power Demand”.GE Aerospace HistoryThe Aerospace division, now GE Aerospace (GE +1.09%),  became quickly the driving force behind American excellence in jet engine manufacturing. Among its many historic achievements, a few can be mentioned:Mass manufacturing of turbosuperchargers enabled aircraft to fly higher, with heavier payloads.America’s first jet engine.The first turbojet engines to power flights at two and three times the speed of sound.The first high bypass turbofan engine, allowing for enhanced fuel efficiency, reduced noise emissions, and improved overall performance.For a while, GE Aerospace was solely a military jet engine manufacturer, having equipped the US Air Force in WW1, WW2, Korea, and the Cold War.Using the TF39 military engine as a template, it developed its first civilian engine in 1971, the CF6 engine. It would turn out to have the largest installed base of any widebody engine in history, with the latest version, the CF6-80C2, still in production today.The Rebirth of GE Aerospace: From Conglomerate to Aerospace LeaderSince its foundation as an energy company, and then its extension as a plane engine manufacturing company, GE lost its way in the 1990s.During this period and in the 2000s, GE started to make multiple acquisitions and diversification moves to turn it into a giant industrial conglomerate, with activities spreading into healthcare, telecommunication, computing, entertainment, etc.This turn started in 1981 under the direction of the company's CEO, Jack Welch, who focused on the company's financial performance first and engineering prowess second.He was also renowned for his ruthless approach to management. He notably pioneered the practice of annually firing 10% of the employees with the lowest ratings on internal reviews, earning him a comparison to a neutron bomb, leaving only the empty building after him (“Neutron Jack”).Another trend of this period was the financialization of the company, with the rise of GE Capital, the banking arm of the company. At one point, GE Capital was a $500B company, making 2/3rd of GE’s profits.GE Capital hands were in everything from credit cards to insurance, to mortgages. At the time, this was all seen as a smart, low-cost way to boost profits

BEIJING: GE Aerospace plans to expand its operations in Malaysia and across the Asia-Pacific region as it strengthens its maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) capabilities to meet rising global aviation demand.