General Electric Co. posted a 15% rise in revenue in the most recent quarter as the company continues to shift its focus toward industrial businesses and away from banking.

GE shares, up 22% over the past year, slipped 0.6% to $32.40 in premarket trading as the company also reported a 2% decrease in orders and described the current business environment as "a volatile and slow-growth economy."

The company said its power, aviation and health-care segments offset challenges in transportation and in oil and gas, but that it expects to see strong organic growth in the second half of the year.

Over all for the period ended June 30, GE reported a profit of $2.74 billion, or 36 cents a share, compared with a loss of $1.36 billion, or 17 cents a share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose to $33.49 billion from $29.23 billion.

Excluding the finance businesses being wound down, GE reported a profit of 51 cents a share, while revenue came in at $24.4 billion.

GE said its industrial profit slipped 5.4% to $4.1 billion in the quarter.

Last month, the conglomerate's lending arm, GE Capital, successfully shed its designation as a "systemically important" financial institution—a label that had required the company to submit to stricter rules and supervision by the Federal Reserve—after months of shedding assets of the business, long seen as a distraction by investors who believed it dragged on the company's share price.

GE said Friday that the GE Capital exit plan has enabled it to return $15 billion in dividends year to date, and the company's de-designation as a systemically important financial institution gives it more balance sheet flexibility.

"We will continue to invest in key growth initiatives such as GE Digital, while returning [about] $26 billion to investors through buyback and dividends," GE Chief Executive Jeff Immelt said.

Write to Anne Steele at Anne.Steele@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 22, 2016 07:25 ET (11:25 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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