Hedge Fund Titan Einhorn Blasts GE In Quarterly Letter

Billionaire hedge-fund manager David Einhorn had harsh words for General Electric Co. in his first-quarter letter, calling the company's decision earlier this month to largely shed its finance arm a victory for proponents of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. "GE's staggering $16 billion after-tax charge will drain another 5-7% from the S&P 500 quarterly earnings. Given that GE is exiting these portfolios after several years of economic and valuation recoveries and still has to take an enormous loss, the gigacharge adds clarity to the multi-decade debate about the integrity of GE's reported results," Einhorn wrote, according to a copy of the letter posted at Valuewalk on Monday. "That GE chose to exit and finally own up to its cumulative chicanery rather than face its first Fed-supervised stress test is one of the real successes of Dodd-Frank," he wrote. Greenlight lost 1.7% in the first quarter, according to the letter. Einhorn had no long position in GE as of Dec. 31, according to a regulatory filing. A spokesman for Greenlight didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment.