Impatience with Immelt drives investors to Emerson

General Electric Co investors, impatient with Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt's effort to revive the shares, are buying Emerson Electric Co and United Technologies Corp.

GE lost about a third of its market value in the past year amid concerns the financial units of the world's largest maker of jet engines and power-plant turbines are too exposed to the global credit crunch. The shares may dive 20 percent more if the US economy goes into a recession in 2009, Credit Suisse analysts wrote on June 30. That's about twice the potential decline for Emerson, the biggest producer of power equipment for oil companies, or United Technologies, which builds Sikorsky helicopters and Otis elevators, the report said.

"We are buying Emerson," said Peter Sorrentino, senior portfolio manager at Huntington Asset Management in Cincinnati, which oversees $16.7 billion and isn't adding to the 2.9 million GE shares it owns.