For Whom Do You Lobby, Madame Secretary?

[Robb]

25. 9-10K, a little less than half of that in the nuke division.

Recall Toshiba got its 51% stake for $5.4 billion in 2006. Almost twice what GE was willing to pay -- and, IIRC, actually bid.

It was supposed to be a great deal, still -- $6-8 billion in promised China contracts alone would cover the cost of obtaining a majority stake. Less than a billion dollars in clean-up liabilities. And like $50 billion in future China work to chase after. Easy money.

But GE dropped out at half that. I wouldn't be the first to say it would've been as satisfying for GE to buy Westinghouse as it would be for Pepsi to buy Coca-Cola.

Yet Immelt bailed, even for the -- let's face it -- paltry sum of $5.4 billion. The next year Westinghouse inked the deal with China for four reactors -- they contracted six in 2007, the Westinghouse ones were the only to be built by a non-government-owned (e.g. private sector) company.

(French state-owned Areva got the gig on the other two, with Mitsubishi reactors. Mitsubishi bailed on the Westinghouse bidding around the same time GE did.)

Immelt meanwhile talked his board into focusing "development" money on US lobbying and European contracts, almost like he thought Asia was too risky. It was the China connections that made Westinghouse worth a dime, and GE walked away.

Toshiba signed the majority holding deal about two weeks after Chūetsu. Immelt took a $6 million bonus. And you think Japan's pulling the strings?