How much is General Electric really worth?
For years, analysts and investors have speculated about the true value of General Electric’s opaque mix of finance and manufacturing. Now Warren Buffett has offered a clue: A lot less than most investors thought. Berkshire Hathaway’s chairman opened his $31 billion checkbook and agreed to pay $3 billion for a slug of GE (nyse: GE – news – people ) preferred stock that pays 10% interest–the same rate he extracted from Goldman Sachs (nyse: GS – news – people ) earlier this week and well above the 5.5% GE debt yielded in May.
