GE-JPMorgan Chase Collaboration Enters The Second Phase

Leading industry giant, General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) recently announced the commencement of the second phase of its ongoing collaboration with JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) . Per the collaboration, General Electric is to install new energy management and digital technologies to increase the energy efficiency of approximately 4,500 Chase branches across the U.S.

General Electric’s unit, Current’s expertise in the field of energy will reduce Chase’s electric and gas by 15% and water from irrigation systems by 20%. The companies are working closely to pilot an installation of solar panels at Chase branches in California. Chase plans to introduce solar technology to thousands of other locations.

On Feb 19, 2016, the companies inked a deal, per which General Electric was supposed to install LED lighting across most of Chase's U.S. branches. Spanning across approximately 25 million square feet, over roughly 5,000 branches, the project is considered to be the world's largest single-order LED installation deal to date.

Till now, 2,500 branches have been retrofitted with LED lighting, reducing Chase’s lighting energy consumption by 50%, the equivalent of taking nearly 27,000 cars off the road. In addition, 60 Chase offices are scheduled for LED retrofits.

Using General Electric’s technology, Chase will be well positioned to run its facilities more efficiently, reduce energy consumption and enhance it client’s experience.

Chase’s branches will incorporate a wide range of new software applications developed by Current and its digital partner ecosystem, which will be powered by General Electric’s renowned Predix technology.

Per a market research, the LED lighting market is anticipated to grow 45% per year through 2020 and is expected to reach $63.1 billion by 2020. Based on this report, we can conclude that if General Electric continues to win such prestigious contracts it will be well positioned to beat all estimates going forward.

Despite its ongoing contract wins, General Electric has underperformed the Zacks categorized Diversified Operations industry in the last three months owing to macroeconomic challenges and fluctuations in currency exchanges. The company reported an average loss of 9.3% against 0.2% gain for the industry in the same time frame. We expect the company to improve its performance on the back of its strategic decisions.

General Electric presently has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). A couple better-ranked stocks in the industry include Barloworld Limited (OTC:BRRAY) and 3M Company (NYSE:MMM) . Both the stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

3M has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 9.7%.

Barloworld has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 17.2%.

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