GE to end its run as a conglomerate

General Electric, the storied American manufacturer that struggled under its own weight after growing to become a sprawling conglomerate, will divide itself into three public companies focused on aviation, health care and energy.

The company’s announcement Tuesday is the culmination of an arduous, yearslong reshapof a symbol of American manufacturing might that could signal the end of conglomerates as a whole.

“It’s over now,” said Nick Heymann of William Blair, who has followed GE for years. “In a digital economy, there’s no real room for it.”

The company has already rid itself of the products most Americans know it for, including its appliances, and last year, the light bulbs that GE had been making since the late 19th century when the company was founded.

The breakup marks the apogee of those efforts, divvying up an empire created in the 1980s under Jack Welch, one of America’s first CEO “superstars.”

GE’S stock became one of the most sought after on Wall Street under Welch, routinely outperforming peers and the broader market. Through the 1990s, it returned 1,120.6% on investments. GE’S reveing nue grew nearly fivefold during Welch’s tenure, and the company’s value increased 30-fold.

Yet the stock began to lag in the summer of 2001, the waning days of Welch’s rule. As the decade came to a close, GE was struck by near ruin with the arrival of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. General Electric’s vulnerabilities were laid bare and the epicenter was GE Capital, the company’s financial wing.