July 25 (Bloomberg) -- General Electric Co. reduced its divisions to four from six, reflecting Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt's efforts to shed slow-growing businesses as its stock trades near a five-year low.

The main divisions will now be GE Technology Infrastructure, GE Energy Infrastructure, GE Capital and NBC Universal, the Fairfield, Connecticut-based company said in a statement today. John Krenicki, who will lead the new energy unit, was promoted to vice chairman, the statement said. He is 46.

The new structure emphasizes Immelt's priorities as he tries to shield GE from economic swings by divesting consumer units and exploit its role as the world's biggest maker of power-plant turbines and jet engines. About $81 billion of GE's market value has evaporated since April, when Immelt disclosed a surprise first-quarter loss he blamed on turmoil in financial markets.

``I appreciate the idea of breaking up infrastructure to highlight the technology aspect,'' Robert Schenosky, a New York- based analyst with Jefferies & Co. who rates the shares ``hold'' and doesn't own any, said in an interview. ``Where I do get concerned about the consolidation from six groups to four is the level of transparency we may get going forward.''

In particular, the formerly separate health-care group now folded into the technology infrastructure unit is one area where performance will be harder to track, he said.

Profit Target

GE was unchanged at $28.71 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have declined 22 percent since April 10, the day before Immelt told investors he would miss this year's profit target of at least $2.42 a share. GE touched $25.60 on July 18, the lowest price since April 2003.

Immelt has sold slower-growing and capital-intensive businesses such as insurance and plastics for more than $55 billion and made more than $80 billion in acquisitions in health care, water treatment and power-generation equipment. Analysts including Jeffrey Sprague of Citigroup Inc. have called for a simpler, easier-to-understand grouping.

``We can structure the company in a simpler way that can maximize future growth,'' Immelt said in the statement. GE is ``well-positioned to capitalize on some of the major growth themes of this era.''

Under the new grouping, the segment revenue of the two infrastructure businesses last year represented 47 percent of the company, or $73 billion, spokesman Jeffrey DeMarrais said in an e-mail. GE Capital represents 38 percent, or more than $66 billion. NBC Universal is about 10 percent, or $15.4 billion.

Immelt, who is 52 and entering his seventh year as CEO, foreshadowed today's move on July 11 when he reported GE's second-quarter profit.

Finance Divisions

On a call with analysts that day, he presented a chart labeled ``Company Going Forward.'' It featured three main business groupings: infrastructure, financial and media. The chart divided infrastructure into energy and technical.

The CEO said in May that he intends to change GE's product mix to about 60 percent non-financial by 2010, making it more valuable to investors who assign higher stock values to industrial companies. GE's stock price is about 13 times estimated earnings for the next 12 months.

GE'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 filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Last year was the first time GE got more than half its revenue from overseas.

Appliances

This month Immelt announced plans to sell GE's consumer- lending operations in Japan for about $5.4 billion, one day after saying he would pursue the spinoff of GE's consumer lighting and electrical switches business in addition to the century-old appliances unit.

Second-quarter profit from continuing operations fell 3.9 percent to $5.39 billion, or 54 cents a share. Sales rose 11 percent to $46.9 billion, beating the average estimate in a Bloomberg survey of a dozen analysts.

Also today, GE said it may face U.S. regulatory claims stemming from an industrywide probe into whether banks rigged the bidding on investments and derivatives sold to municipal governments.

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued a so-called Wells notice on July 21 to the company's Funding Capital Market Services business, advising that investigators plan to recommend a civil complaint, GE said in a regulatory filing.

Mortgage-backed Securities

In a separate filing, GE said it reduced its residential mortgage-backed securities by $500 million, or 8.6 percent, in the past three months. GE holds about $5.3 billion in residential mortgage-backed securities as of June 30, down from $5.8 billion at the end of the first quarter.

GE also reduced its commercial mortgage-backed securities to $2.7 billion, down from $2.8 billion held as of March 31. The company also said it reduced its exposure to subprime credit in its residential mortgage-backed securities to $1.7 billion from $1.8 billion in the first quarter.

To contact the reporter on this story: Edmond Lococo in Boston at elococo@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 25, 2008 19:33 EDT