GE: back to basics?

General Electric seems primed to return to its roots as an electrical and industrial manufacturer, now that boss Jeffrey Immelt has put forth plans for unwinding most of GE Capital, which under past CEO John F. Welch Jr. accounted for more than half the company. GE says it will send billions in proceeds from financial asset sales back to shareholders, while also buying additional industrial assets like France's Alstrom, an electric power turbine maker.

I visit GE's last Philly-based business -- GE Water & Process Technology, in Trevose -- and ask Welch, who retired in 2001 to join wife Suzy as a business and personal career guru (he was in town pushing his latest book: The Real Life MBA), if it might have made more sense for GE to keep its Philadelphia turbine factories running in the first place instead of shutting the last of them in 2001. Read about GE and Welch in my Sunday Inquirer column here.