The General Electric Company or GEC was a major British-based industrial conglomerate, involved in consumer and defence electronics, communications and engineering. The company was once a constituent of the FT 30 and FTSE 100 Index.
In December 1999, GEC was renamed to Marconi plc and became a telecommunications focused company; when its defence arm, Marconi Electronic Systems was amalgamated with British Aerospace to form BAE Systems. The financial troubles that followed the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2000/2001, led to the May 2003 restructuring of Marconi plc to Marconi Corporation plc.
In 2005, Ericsson purchased the bulk of Marconi Corporation plc, along with its principal subsidiary, Marconi Communications. The remainder of the business was renamed Telent.
Famous quotes containing the words general, electric and/or company:
“There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean “the foolish face of praise,” the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease, in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not spontaneously moved but moved, by a low usurping wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face, with the most disagreeable sensation.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Flabby, bald, lobotomized,
he drifted in a sheepish calm,
where no agonizing reappraisal
jarred his concentration of the electric chair—
hanging like an oasis in his air
of lost connections. . . .”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“Life is very narrow. Bring any club or company of intelligent men together again after ten years, and if the presence of some penetrating and calming genius could dispose them to frankness, what a confession of insanities would come up!”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)