Go to www.ge.com and follow the link to Investor Relations, and then to Financial Reporting to see General Electric ’s (GE) most recent annual report.

Answer the following questions about GE:

1. Look at GE’s income statement, which it calls a statement of earnings. Does GE consolidate parent and subsidiary accounts in the statement? Does GE hold less than 100% interest in any of its subsidiaries? How do you know?

2. Turn to GE’s balance sheet. What does GE call this statement? GE omits some subtotals that most companies include on their balance sheets. What are these subtotals? How much “Non-controlling interest [in equity of consolidated affiliates]” does GE show? What does this mean?

3. Does GE pay cash dividends? If so, what was the payout ratio in the most recent year?

4. Compute GE’s return on shareholders’ equity for the GE shareholders for the last two years.

Is the change in a positive or negative direction?