GE’s CEO may have what it takes to revive its power division

General Electric CEO Larry Culp has simplified the company’s report techniques and could be on the right path to fix the challenges in its power division, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Wednesday.

Culp, who became chief of GE in September, delivered his first annual letter to shareholders on Tuesday that Cramer said made a significant departure from pages of “incomprehensible” numbers about each of the conglomerate’s businesses. The annual report laid out the 2018 performances of all eight segments on one condensed page.

“It’s honest, it’s forthright, it’s straightforward, and short,” the “Mad Money” host said. “It’s the most un-GE piece of correspondence I’ve ever seen. The culture shock here is downright stunning.”

The page explains the mission, staff count, and five key year-over-year financial comparisons for each segment. It showed that profit was up double digits in the aviation and oil and gas divisions, but Cramer said Culp has his work cut out in the power division.

That division, according tot he report, had about 59,700 employees, saw orders decrease 23 percent, and lost $808 million in 2018. Cramer said the business is overstaffed.

“The power division is killing them,” he said.

But a fixed power segment with the backdrop of a “fabulous” aviation division and a “very good” health care business would put GE in a good position, Cramer said, along with other “flotsam and jetsam” that need to be shrunk or sold.

The host even pointed out that Culp included a quote from Ernst Kraaij of GE’s power business that read: “the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.”

Culp followed that line writing the company is “embracing our reality and executing the plan … Now it’s more about what we do than what we say.”

“After reading this incredible letter, you know what I think he can pull it off,” Cramer said.

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