April 17 (Bloomberg) -- Former General Electric Co. Chief Executive Officer Jack Welch said he ``really stepped in it'' yesterday with his televised comment that successor Jeffrey Immelt had a ``credibility issue'' after missing profit estimates.

``I was getting all these e-mails from the media with different pictures of what I said,'' Welch said on CNBC today. ``And nothing, nothing, nothing is as disgusting to me as some old CEO chirping away about how things aren't as good under the new guy as they were under him. That's the last thing that I would be involved in. If I had something bad to say, I never would've gone on.''

Welch, 72, returned to the GE-owned financial news network this morning following a two-hour live appearance yesterday in which he said Immelt has a credibility issue after the company's first-quarter earnings miss. He said that he wanted to set the record straight on his support for the company and Immelt, whom he called a ``hell of a CEO.''

GE on April 11 forecast profit of $2.20 to $2.30 a share for 2008, down from the prior $2.42 Immelt had repeated as recently as March 13, citing financial market turmoil that cut the value of investments and thwarted end-of-quarter dealmaking. The shares fell the most in more than two decades that day. Immelt's forecasting and strategy were questioned by some investors and analysts.

`Screw-Up'

``In an effort to put GE's first-quarter earnings miss in context, I really stepped in it,'' CNBC reported Welch as saying in his BusinessWeek column tomorrow. ``Much to my shock and horror remarks I made on CNBC's Squawk Box about the performance of GE and CEO Jeff Immelt were interpreted to mean the exact opposite of what I intended.''

Yesterday, Welch, who led the company from 1981 until retiring in 2001, said: ``Here's the screw-up: You made a promise that you'd deliver this and you miss three weeks later.''

In his BusinessWeek column, he said: ``I want to set the record straight. Jeff is an outstanding CEO, and the GE financial model is as attractive as ever. I will endeavor in retirement not to step in it again.''

GE posted first-quarter profit from continuing operations of $4.36 billion, or 44 cents a share, down 12 percent from a year earlier and missing the 51-cent average analyst estimate in a Bloomberg survey.

`Silly Talk'

Immelt, 52, told investors at the time that he will stick to his strategy for profit growth. GE Infrastructure, the biggest segment, beat the company's own revenue forecast in the first quarter and had a profit gain of 17 percent. Last year was also the first time more than half of total company revenue came from overseas, another strategy to steady growth.

GE said today it agreed to buy most of Citigroup Inc.'s North American commercial lending and leasing unit, adding $13.4 billion in finance assets.

General Electric's finance-related businesses accounted for 44 percent of net income and 53 percent of profit from continuing operations last year, according to its annual U.S. Securities and Exchange filings.

``GE's a great company with a great model with a hell of a CEO who's reshuffled the business portfolio to make it stronger for the next decade,'' Welch told CNBC today. ``And all this nonsense that's been buzzing around for the last week is just silly talk. I am 100 percent supportive of everything going on there.''

GE fell 21 cents to $32.02 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have fallen 9 percent in the past year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rachel Layne in Boston at rlayne@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 17, 2008 16:25 EDT