General Electric Co.’s fourth-quarter profit dipped 19 percent despite signs that sales in the company’s key health care, energy and industrial markets appear to be stabilizing.

Fairfield, Conn.-based GE (NYSE: GE) said fourth-quarter profit was $2.9 billion, or 28 cents per share, compared with $3.6 billion, or 35 cents per share, a year earlier.

Fourth-quarter revenue declined in each of GE’s five business units — energy infrastructure, technology infrastructure, NBC Universal, capital finance and Louisville-based Consumer & Industrial. Revenue fell 10 percent, to $41.4 billion from $46.2 billion a year earlier.

A consensus of financial analysts polled by Thomson Financial Network had predicted earnings of 26 cents per share on revenue of $40 billion.

Fourth-quarter revenue in the Consumer & Industrial unit declined 8 percent year-over-year, to $2.5 billion from $2.7 billion. The business unit’s segment profit increased to $136 million from $36 million a year earlier.

“GE’s environment has improved, and we saw some encouraging signs at year-end,” GE chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt said in a news release.

He added that fourth-quarter infrastructure orders increased $3.7 billion from the third quarter, to $22.1 billion, and the total company backlog of equipment and services increased from the third quarter, to a record $175 billion. GE’s health care unit also entered 2010 with a larger backlog of orders than it had in the year-earlier period.

2009 profit down 38 percent

For the full year, GE had net income of $10.7 billion compared with $17.3 billion in 2008. Earnings per share declined to $1.01 from $1.72 in 2008.

Revenue during the same period declined to $156.8 billion from $182.5 billion.

GE Consumer & Industrial reported full-year segment profit of $400 million, up from $365 million a year earlier. The unit’s revenue during the same period fell 17 percent, to $9.7 billion from $11.7 billion in 2008.

General Electric Co. announced Jan. 4 that it will separate its industrial-power-generating division from its lighting and appliances division.

The units had been part of GE Consumer & Industrial.

GE is transferring the power-generation division to its Atlanta-based GE Energy Industrial Services business to create GE Industrial Solutions.

GE Appliances and GE Lighting will be combined with GE Security, which makes security systems, and GE Intelligent Platforms, which makes industrial automation controls, to form a new division called GE Home & Business Solutions.

The move is not expected to have an impact on operations at Louisville’s Appliance Park.

GE has announced that it will invest as much as $30 million at Appliance Park over the next three years to develop new “smart grid” appliances and other technologies that will allow appliances to use less electricity than current models.

GE also recently reached a deal to sell a majority stake in NBC Universal to Comcast Corp., dropping its share in the television and movie company to 49 percent from 80 percent.

“During the difficult economy of 2009, we took a series of actions to improve GE so that we would be positioned for growth in the future,” Immelt said in the release. “We are positioned to win in this environment.

Capital finance unit continues to struggle

GE capital finance division was profitable for the quarter and the full year, but continued to struggle.

Fourth-quarter revenue fell 15 percent, to $12.5 billion from $14.8 billion, and Its segment profit fell 67 percent, to $336 million from $1 billion a year earlier.

For the full year, GE Capital’s revenue fell 24 percent to $50.6 billion from $67 billion. Its segment profit declined 73 percent to $2.3 billion from $8.6 billion.

“Capital finance is executing well in a difficult environment,” Immelt said in the release. “Every segment at GE Capital was profitable with the exception of commercial real estate, which continues to operate in a difficult environment.”

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