GE Aerospace Stock: Inside Larry Culp's Turnaround From Near Collapse to $689 Billion

What Larry Culp's GE Turnaround Changed

A new Fortune profile puts a number on one of the more remarkable corporate rebuilds of the past decade: GE Aerospace is now valued at $689 billion. That figure matters because of where the company started. In 2018, the year Larry Culp took over as chief executive, General Electric was pulled from the Dow Jones Industrial Average after more than a century on the index, weighed down by billions of dollars of debt tied to its GE Capital finance arm and a badly timed acquisition of Alstom's power business. The stock had lost most of its value, and there was real doubt about whether the conglomerate could survive intact.

Culp's fix was to break the company apart rather than try to hold it together. GE sold off GE Capital assets, spun off GE HealthCare in 2023 and GE Vernova, the power and renewables business, in 2024. What remains, renamed GE Aerospace, is a focused jet-engine maker built around the LEAP engine program it runs with Safran through the CFM International joint venture. That narrower, simpler business is what the market now prices at $689 billion.

Why GE Aerospace Stock Is in Focus

The headline number is a reminder that this turnaround is not a one-quarter story, it is a multi-year change in what the company actually does for a living. Jet engines, and especially the decades-long service contracts that come with them, produce steadier and more profitable revenue than the sprawling industrial conglomerate GE used to run. Airlines pay to maintain and overhaul engines for years after the original sale, which gives GE Aerospace a recurring stream of income that is less exposed to any single quarter's order book than a typical industrial manufacturer.

For a reader following the stock, the useful question is less "what happened today" and more "did the simplification actually work." The valuation Culp has built over the past several years is the market's answer.

Which Stocks, and Why

GE Aerospace is the direct beneficiary of this story. Its business is now almost entirely commercial and military jet engines plus the related services that follow them, so its earnings track aircraft production rates at Boeing and Airbus and, just as important, how many older engines are due for shop visits. A turnaround story like this is a signal about execution and balance-sheet strength built up over years rather than a single new contract, so it supports the stock's standing over the long run rather than moving it on one data point.

The two businesses GE spun off, GE Vernova and GE HealthCare, now trade as separate companies and report their own results on their own timelines, so they sit outside this specific story.

What to Watch

The clearest tests of whether the turnaround keeps holding are commercial aircraft delivery rates from Boeing and Airbus, since GE Aerospace supplies engines to both, and the pace of engine shop visits as airlines work through deferred maintenance built up in recent years. Quarterly results that keep showing services revenue growing faster than new engine sales would back up the read that this is a durable, higher-margin business rather than a cyclical bounce that could fade if aircraft production slows.