伊梅尔特没做错什么，但无法给投资者带来收益

杰夫·伊梅尔特担任通用电气（General Electric）CEO的近16年时间，在长期备受煎熬的投资者看来是不成功的，因为如果他们投资一支指数基金，肯定能获得更好的回报率。但我们不能如此苛刻地评价伊梅尔特。他离职的消息公布以后，迫使人们不得不关注通用电气始终未给出满意答案的一个重要问题：作为一家业务庞杂、定期跑输大市的综合大企业，通用电气为什么依旧能存在？

伊梅尔特的继任者约翰·弗兰纳里是通用电气卓越领导力培养程序的成果，他似乎已经为新工作做好了充分准备。但伊梅尔特和他的所有前任同样如此。一个残酷的事实是，投资者没有理由期望公司就一定能一扫过去的阴霾，未来能带来更高的回报。

问题在于，通用电气的业务组合在不断变化，各项业务之间并没有按照任何组织原则联系在一起。通用电气不止是一家公司；它是一家主动式管理的共同基金，CEO相当于基金经理。在宣布伊梅尔特离职的消息时，通用电气董事会的首席独立董事杰克·布伦南赞扬伊梅尔特“进行了大规模的业务组合改造。”但这是每一位通用电气CEO都会做的事情。伊梅尔特执行的策略包括放弃塑料、家电、保险、网络电视等业务以及通用电气资本的绝大部分；涉足油田服务、软件、3D打印和更多非美国业务。他曾尝试但后来又放弃了安全、水处理和电影业务。

很可惜，作为负责对业务组合进行重新洗牌的人，尽管伊梅尔特的表现并不逊色于多数基金经理和他的多数前辈们，他还是跑输了大市。而正是因为这个无法避免的事实，投资者们多年来一直要求他下台。

在通用电气的CEO中有一个人是最大的例外，他就是伊梅尔特的前任杰克·韦尔奇，他在20年任期内多数时间都跑赢了大盘。但他的成功只是突出了通用电气的麻烦。通用电气自二战结束以来便一直是一家多元经营的大公司，并且在先后经历了六位CEO之后，公司股价才小幅超过标准普尔500指数。但这些出色的业绩，只能归功于韦尔奇一个人；假设在韦尔奇任期内通用电气的股票走势只是与大盘一致，则公司在二战之后的业绩依旧将远远落后于标普500指数。一家公司不能把期待遇到一个百年一遇的管理天才作为战略。

伊梅尔特的所有策略都是正确的。他从上任之初，便一改韦尔奇的做法，将更多资源投入到技术研发与创新。一位前公司高层回忆称：“他开始在会议上讨论能源与医疗保健行业未来十年的前景。”在金融危机之前放弃保险业务非常有先见之明，但他并未因此获得足够的赞扬。过去两年，他将公司的重心转移到工业业务，尤其是基础设施业务，尽管这些业务仍非常多元化；例如，PET扫描仪和海底油井防喷装置没有任何相同之处。他投入了大量资源，对这些业务进行数字化改造，帮助促进不同业务之间的知识共享。这些策略听起来都是非常合理的。

此外，伊梅尔特堪称是广义上的CEO典范。在担任CEO大约四年之后，沃伦·巴菲特告诉笔者：“在他的任期内，他很有可能是最受尊敬的美国公司代言人。他具备了这个职位要求的所有条件 —— 他既有优秀商人的信誉，又有一流的人品。”一位前公司高管告诉笔者：“他工作非常拼命。他会为了获得一份订单，亲自坐飞机前往菲律宾。”

但在他任期内，通用电气的股东整体回报率一直远远落后于标普500指数的平均回报率。当然，在约翰·弗兰纳里的领导下，股东回报率或许会大幅提高。但在当前公司满怀希望进行转型的关键时刻，通用电气的投资者、员工和其他利益相关者必须面对一个铁的事实：除非弗兰纳里和董事会决定拆分通用电气，否则他们没有理由期望公司有更好的市场表现。（财富中文网）

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

Jeff Immelt’s near-16-year tenure as CEO of General Electric (GE, -1.55%) was not successful for the company’s long-suffering investors, who would have done far better in an index fund. But let’s not judge him too harshly. His announced departure forces attention on a large question that the company has never answered satisfactorily: Why does GE—a sprawling conglomerate that chronically underperforms the market—still exist?

Immelt’s successor, John Flannery, is a product of GE’s excellent leadership development process and seems superbly prepared for the job. But the same was true of Immelt and all his CEO predecessors. The harsh reality is that investors have no reason to expect the future will be much better than the miserable past.

The problem is that GE is an ever changing portfolio of businesses unconnected by any organizing principle. It isn’t just a company; it’s an actively managed mutual fund, with the CEO as the manager. In announcing Immelt’s departure, the GE board’s lead independent director, Jack Brennan, praised him for having “executed a massive portfolio transformation.” But that’s what every GE CEO does. Among other moves, Immelt got out of plastics, appliances, insurance, network TV, and nearly all of GE Capital; he got into oilfield services, software, 3D printing, and more non-U.S. operations. He got into and then out of security, water processing, and movies.

Unfortunately, as a portfolio shuffler Immelt performed about as well as most fund managers and most of his predecessors: He underperformed the market. That unavoidable fact has had investors calling for his head for years.

The great exception among GE CEOs is of course Jack Welch, Immelt’s immediate predecessor, who massively beat the market in his 20-year tenure. But his success merely emphasizes the trouble with GE. The company has been a conglomerate since the end of World War II, and through the six CEOs since then it has slightly bested the S&P 500. All of that outperformance and much more, however, is attributable solely to Welch; if we assume that GE simply matched the market during his tenure, then it would have severely lagged behind the S&P 500 since World War II. Hoping for a once-a-century managerial phenomenon is not a corporate strategy.

Immelt did all kinds of things right. From the beginning of his tenure he put greater resources into technological research and innovation than Welch had done. “He started having conferences on the state of energy and healthcare ten years in the future,” notes a former high-level executive. Getting out of insurance before the financial crisis was a prescient move for which he receives insufficient credit. Over the past two years he has focused the company on industrial businesses, especially infrastructure businesses, though they’re still widely diverse; PET scanners and undersea oil well blowout preventers have little in common. He has invested heavily in digitizing those businesses and in helping them share their knowledge among one another. It all sounds impressively reasoned.

In addition, Immelt is in the broad sense a model CEO. When he’d been in the job about four years, Warren Buffett told me, “He’s likely to be the most respected spokesman for American business in his tenure. He has all the ingredients to fill that role—the credentials as a terrific businessperson and a first-class person.” A former top executive told me, “He works his ass off. He’ll jump on a plane to the Philippines to get an order.”

And yet GE’s total return to shareholders has lagged far behind the S&P 500’s over his tenure. Of course it might do significantly better under John Flannery. But at this hopeful moment of transition, GE's investors, employees, and other stakeholders must confront a hard fact: Unless Flannery and the board decide to de-conglomerate GE, there’s no reason to expect better performance.