This makes me wonder whether GE can survive its cooked books -- and where GE's auditor, KPMG -- whose contract with GE is up for bid and could end in 2020, according to Bloomberg -- was when all this was happening. Missing the cash flow from GE Capital -- $310 billion of whose assets had been sold -- GE Power executives took a page from Welch's strategy. They made it appear that GE Power was meeting its revenue and profit targets by manipulating its financial reports to come out better than GE Power's economic reality. According to the Journal, "GE executives assured one another they were making accounting maneuvers [that] were legal, if aggressive. What's more, insurance regulators demanded that GE come up with $15 billion in reserves against future costs, noted the Journal.

Source: Forbes December 15, 2018 14:37 UTC