bounced back Friday after the CEO shored up confidence by purchasing a bulk of company shares, and analysts defended the industrial giant.
shares for $7.93 each, according to a Thursday evening filing with the SEC. The CEO has roughly doubled his holding of GE shares this week.GE of $38 billion in accounting fraud — "bigger than Enron and WorldCom combined." He outlined a "long history" of accounting fraud at GE, dating to as early as 1995, when it was run by Jack Welch.
"GE will always take any allegation of financial misconduct seriously. But this is market manipulation – pure and simple," he said in a statement. "Mr. Markopolos's report contains false statements of fact and these claims could have been corrected if he had checked them with GE before publishing the report."
Nick Heymann, co-group head of global industrial infrastructure at William Blair, said it was hard to believe that GE had fraudulently misrepresented its financial reporting — especially after engaging with several regulatory reviews of its accounting and financial disclosures for over two years. "The 175 page report seems sensationalized and according to press reports the author appears to have a financial interest in a GE stock decline given a partnership with an undisclosed hedge fund," Kaplowitz said in a note to clients Thursday. "Overall, we think that some of the allegations were already known and others 'known unknowns,' which lead us to retain our conviction in the potential for share price outperformance over time.
The struggling industrial conglomerate abruptly removed its former CEO and chairman John Flannery last year after only a year on the job and installed Culp as his successor. Flannery had been appointed in August 2017, taking the reins from Jeff Immelt as GE's stock steadily eroded.
All it took to placate the Wall St rubes was the CEO (who was just accused of massive fraud) buying his own shares? Wow.
Short sellers made millions after reporting an unsubstantiated financial analysis.
Where’s that 🥜 bag from yesterday 🤷🏻♂️He was peaking tweaking on cat nip or what 🤷🏻♂️😆
Markopolos and this unnamed hedge fund need to be investigated.
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