Bad news mounting for General Electric

General Electric took a $22.8 billion loss in the third quarter, with the conglomerate disclosing a criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice over its financial reporting.

Under its new chairman and CEO, General Electric is cutting its quarterly dividend to a penny a share next year, after paying out 12 cents over four successive quarters and 24 cents in the prior year. GE paid out dividends totaling $3.1 billion in the third quarter.

GE’s third-quarter revenue was down 4 percent from a year ago to $29.6 billion, with sales down a third for its power subsidiary.

Entering October, the board of General Electric installed Larry Culp Jr. as CEO and chairman, replacing John Flannery, whose tenure lasted just 14 months after former CEO Jeff Immelt was shown the door, on the heels of Immelt moving the company’s headquarters to Boston from Fairfield. GE left in place Jamie Miller, who became chief financial officer with Flannery’s promotion as the replacement for Immelt’s CFO Jeff Bornstein. The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission has an existing probe under way of GE’s financial reporting.

Speaking on a Tuesday morning conference call, Culp noted the Boston Red Sox winning the World Series largely with the same team the club fielded a year ago, and drew an analogy to the conglomerate he is inheriting.

“There are a lot of people around GE that know the company far better than I do,” Culp said. “I have been truly impressed with the talented people I’ve met, really, around the world. This team’s been through a lot the last several years. The company perhaps does not enjoy the reputation it once did . ... There are things we can do to build on this team, these assets, these strengths, and that’s what we are going to do.”

The Norwalk headquarters of GE Capital is now GE’s last major office in southwestern Connecticut where it employed 1,400 people at last report, with the company also having a few thousand employees in the Hartford area via GE’s $9.5 billion acquisition in 2015 of Alstom’s power division. GE paid $3 billion this month to Alstom to take full control of a trio of joint ventures the companies had created prior to a full transfer.

In announcing on Oct. 1 the newest switch in the corner office, GE informed investors it was eyeing as much as a $23 billion charge against earnings to account for the loss of intangible value in its GE Power division.

Culp, 55, led Danaher Corp. as CEO from 2001 to 2014, with the Washington, D.C.-based conglomerate’s stock roughly quintupling over those years and continuing on a steady upward trajectory since. By comparison under Immelt, GE shares lost nearly half their value during that period.

Culp is one of three new directors to have joined GE’s board this year, along with Leslie Seidman, the former chair of the Norwalk-based Financial Accounting Standards Board; and Tom Horton, the former CEO of American Airlines.

GE Capital revenue was up 3 percent in the second quarter to $2.5 billion, with the unit’s assets totaling $128.5 billion.