Is GE stock going to split soon
A GE stock split might seem like a future possibility, but to understand it, we must look at a crucial past event. In 2021, General Electric executed a major “reverse stock split” that fundamentally reshaped how its stock appears on the market. Grasping that one decision is the key to making sense of GE’s situation today.
A stock split can sound complex, but it’s as simple as deciding how to slice a pizza. This financial reorganization changes the number of shares but doesn’t alter the company’s total value. At the moment of the split, no value is created or destroyed; your portion of the company is just packaged differently.
Using the 2021 General Electric event as our main example, we’ll explore why a company makes this choice and what it means for regular people—whether you own stock or are just curious about the headlines.
What Is a Stock Split? Thinking in Slices, Not Dollars
You may have heard the term “stock split” and pictured a company being broken apart, but the reality is much simpler. Think of a company as a giant pizza. Owning a share of stock is like owning a slice. A forward stock split is when the company decides to cut its existing slices into smaller pieces. For example, in a 2-for-1 split, your one big slice becomes two smaller slices. You own more slices, but each one is now smaller.
Critically, the total amount of pizza you have doesn’t change. If your single slice was worth $100 before the split, you now have two slices worth $50 each. Your total investment is still $100. The same goes for the company as a whole; a split doesn’t change its total value (its market capitalization). It just changes the price tag on each individual slice, often to make them seem more affordable for more people.
A reverse stock split, on the other hand, does the exact opposite. It’s like taking eight small pizza slices and trading them in for one giant slice. You go from owning many shares to owning fewer, but each new share is worth much more. If you had eight shares worth $10 each (totaling $80), you would now have one share worth $80. Again, the total value of your investment remains exactly the same at the moment of the split.
Whether the slices are being cut smaller or combined into larger ones, the size of the pizza stays the same. A stock split is simply financial repackaging, not a magic trick to create or destroy value overnight. This distinction is key to understanding exactly what happened when GE decided to turn every eight shares into one.
Why GE Turned Eight Shares Into One in 2021
If a reverse split doesn’t change the total value of an investment, why would a company bother? For General Electric in 2021, the move was intentional and strategic. Over the years, GE’s stock price had fallen into the single digits. While a low price might seem appealing, it can also signal to investors that a company is struggling. More importantly, major stock exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange have minimum price requirements, and a reverse split is a common tool companies use to lift their share price back into a more substantial-looking range.
This is precisely what GE did. The company executed a 1-for-8 reverse stock split, meaning every eight shares an investor held were consolidated into one new share. Instantly, a stock trading around $13 per share became a stock trading at roughly $104 per share. While an investor’s total account balance remained unchanged at the moment of the split, the optics were transformed. The new, higher price per share presented a picture of a more stable, premium stock.
This wasn’t just financial housekeeping; it was a small but visible piece of a much larger turnaround plan under CEO Larry Culp. The goal was to simplify the sprawling conglomerate and restore investor confidence after years of decline. By tidying up its stock price, GE was sending a clear signal to Wall Street that it was serious about its transformation into a more focused and modern industrial company, setting the stage for the major changes that would follow.
“What Happened to My GE Shares?” A Step-by-Step Calculation
For anyone holding GE stock during the split, the most pressing question was a practical one: how to calculate the new share total. Fortunately, the math is straightforward. The 1-for-8 reverse split means you simply need to divide your original share count by eight.
Here’s the exact process:
- Find your starting number: Look at how many GE shares you owned right before the split.
- Divide by eight: Take that total and divide it by 8.
- Find your new total: The whole number from that calculation is your new quantity of GE shares.
But what happens if your share count wasn’t perfectly divisible by eight? This situation creates what’s known as a fractional share. Instead, your brokerage handles it by giving you a cash in lieu payment—literally, cash in place of that leftover fraction. Your broker automatically sells the fractional portion on the open market and deposits the cash value directly into your account.
For example, if you owned 100 shares of GE, the calculation would be 100 ÷ 8 = 12.5. This means you would receive 12 new shares of GE stock. The remaining 0.5 fractional share would be sold, and you’d get a cash payment for its value. Your investment’s total value was designed to remain the same at the moment of the split—the value of your new shares plus the cash payment equaled the value of your original 100 shares.
Was GE’s Reverse Split a Good or Bad Sign for Investors?
After any reverse stock split, it’s natural to ask: is this a good sign or a bad one? A reverse split often carries a negative reputation. It’s frequently a tool used by struggling companies to artificially boost a low stock price, sometimes to avoid being removed from a major stock exchange. For this reason, many investors see it as a warning that a company is in trouble.
However, the action itself is neutral—the real story is always in the why. Think of it like a business taking out a loan. If they’re borrowing money just to cover payroll because sales have dried up, it’s a concerning sign. But if they’re borrowing to build a brand-new, more efficient factory, it’s a sign of ambition. A reverse split is similar; whether it’s a red flag or a strategic step depends entirely on the company’s long-term plan.
In GE’s case, the split was a foundational move, not a rescue mission. The company had already announced its ambitious goal to separate into three independent, industry-leading businesses. Consolidating its shares was a practical housekeeping measure to create a cleaner, more stable stock structure ahead of that massive undertaking. The move was less about fixing a problem with the old GE and more about setting a strong stage for the new companies to come.
Life After the Split: GE’s Breakup into Three Powerhouse Companies
That foundational move to consolidate shares was preparation for a much bigger event: the complete dismantling of the General Electric conglomerate. The reverse split wasn’t the final chapter; it was merely setting the table. The true goal of CEO Larry Culp’s company restructuring was to take the sprawling, century-old giant and break it into three distinct, publicly traded companies, each a leader in its own field.
The process, known as a “spinoff,” is like a large family business deciding to let its adult children run their own independent shops. In early 2023, GE spun off its medical division into GE HealthCare. Then, in April 2024, the final separation occurred: the energy-focused businesses became GE Vernova, and the remaining aviation giant was reborn as GE Aerospace. With that, the old, diversified “GE” officially ceased to exist.
But why go through all this trouble? The primary motivation was to “unlock value.” When a company gets too big and does too many unrelated things, its strongest parts can be undervalued by investors. By separating, each new entity could tell a clearer story. Investors specifically interested in medical technology, energy, or aviation could now invest directly, allowing the stock performance to be judged on each company’s individual merits.
For investors who held on through the entire process, their investment wasn’t lost—it was transformed. A shareholder of the old GE would have received shares in the new, independent companies along the way. Instead of owning one piece of a massive, complex puzzle, they now owned separate pieces of three much clearer pictures, with their total value reflecting the combined worth of these focused enterprises.
So, Will GE Split Again? What Really Matters Now
With an understanding of stock splits, we can answer the main question: a future split for the entity we once knew as GE is off the table, as it has separated into three distinct companies.
The most critical lesson is that the action of a split is less important than the reason behind it. A split doesn’t magically create or destroy value; it’s a cosmetic adjustment. The long-term performance of any stock will always be driven by the health of the actual business—its products, leadership, and profitability.
The next time a company announces a split, you’ll know it’s not the main event. You can look deeper and ask the real question: Is the business itself strong? After all, the number of slices in the pizza doesn’t matter nearly as much as how good the pizza tastes in the first place.