General Electric slashes its divided by 50%

General Electric's board of directors announced on Monday it is cutting its dividend in half - from $0.24 to $0.12 a share.

"We understand the importance of this decision to our shareowners and we have not made it lightly. GE Chairman and CEO John Flannery said in the release. "We are focused on driving total shareholder return and believe this is the right decision to align our dividend payout to cash flow generation.

"The dividend remains an important component of GE's capital allocation framework. With this action and others that we will be discussing this morning, we are acting with urgency to make GE simpler and stronger to drive growth and create more value for our shareowners."

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