GE Installs New CEO for Healthcare Division

Following his division's soft performance in the first nine months of 2014, GE Healthcare CEO John Dineen is out, to be replaced immediately by John Flannery, the company announced.

GE's stock price immediately dropped from $25.25 per share to $25.01 per share on the news.

Flannery, 53, most recently was senior vice president of business development for GE. In the past year, he led business development activity related to the purchase of Alstom's energy and transmission businesses, the spinoff of GE's retail finance division and the sale of GE Appliances. Prior to that, Flannery was the president and CEO of GE India and a senior leader at GE Capital, the company said. Flannery has been with GE for 27 years.

Dineen, 51, has been with GE for 28 years, the last seven leading its $20 billion Healthcare division. He has also held senior positions in the company's Industrial Systems, Plastics, and Transportation divisions. The company said Dineen was departing to "look at new leadership opportunities outside GE."

Considered a strong and dependable stock decades ago, General Electric is worth less than half of its 2000 peak. Now trading at around $25 per share, the stock was worth nearly $60 at one point in September 2000, Qmed has reported.

Dineen's departure represents the latest change in leadership under GE's chair and CEO Jeff Immelt, according to a reportin Fortune magazine. In the past 15 months, Immelt replaced leaders at GE Capital and GE Oil & Gas, and named Jeff Bornstein the new chief financial officer of GE, the Forbes report said.

The conglomerate has a diversified range of products, making everything from CT scanners to jet engines. GE Healthcare is the world's leading manufacturer of medical imaging devices and specializes in medical diagnostic tools and healthcare IT and software.

Immelt said the company remains committed to healthcare, which he called "an important driver for GE's strategy in growth markets and the industrial Internet."

"GE is poised to benefit as healthcare spending continues to grow around the world," he said in the company statement.

Nancy Crotti is a contributor to Qmed and MPMN.

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