“the technology crossover is less obvious with health care. In this sense, decoupling health care would help management truly focus on becoming a digital industrial company.

“cutting production costs and generating synergies in aviation, power, and oil and gas, have constituted the key operational focus of the company in recent years. However, the main aim of the health care segment in the past few years has been improving the organic growth rate.

“the market rewarded GE for the successful spinoff of its retail finance arm, Synchrony Financial, and the sale of GE capital assets. In other words, shareholders were rewarded when GE jettisoned non-core businesses.”

In June, 2017, when John Flannery was tapped to be GE CEO, he called it, “the greatest honor of my career.”

“John is the right person to lead GE today,” said former CEO Jeff Immelt at that time, adding that he “led one of our most essential businesses.”

The succession plan had been in place for years, and for some on the street it was a welcome change.

"We are happy to have [this change] now," Barclays managing director Scott Davis told CNBC's Squawk Box about the change. "GE needed a new messenger."

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