Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the General Electric 4th Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. My name is Ellen, and I will be your conference coordinator today. If you experience issues with the slides refreshing or there appears to be delays in the slide advancement, please hit F5 on your keyboard to refresh. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the program over to your host for today's conference, Matt Kribbons, Vice President of Investor Communications. Please proceed.
Good morning, and thanks for joining our Q4 2015 webcast. Earlier today, we posted the press release, presentation and supplemental on our investor website at www.ge.com/investor. As always, elements of this presentation are forward looking and are based on our best view of the world and our businesses as we see them today. Those elements can change as the world changes. Today, I'm joined by our Chairman and CEO, Jeff Immelt and our CFO, Jeff Bornstein.
Now I'd like to turn it over to Jeff Immelt.
Thanks, Matt. Let me start with some thoughts on the macro environment and GE's fit in it. For the last few years, I've talked about a slow growth and volatile economy. This is still my view. In the Q4, across our own large industrial footprint, our orders grew by 1% organically and our backlog is at a record of $315,000,000,000 up 7% organically.
Our biggest industrial business, which is power, had organic orders growth of 29% in the quarter. I have a difficult time reconciling this with the mood that is in the markets. Clearly, oil pricing is a concern and will have an impact, but our organic orders growth in the Middle East were up 14% in the quarter, so economic activity is ongoing. I know there's a concern about emerging markets in total, but our organic growth was up 7% in the quarter ex Alstom. And our business in China grew slightly organically in the year and backlog grew by 11%.
So we're seeing a lot of economic volatility, but there's still enough business out there for GE to hit its goals. The GE team had a good quarter in a volatile environment. Total operating EPS was $0.52 up 27% and industrial EPS was $0.47 up 27%. Orders were up slightly and organic growth was down slightly versus a year ago. Total industrial margins expanded by 80 basis points 2015 CFOA grew by 8% to $16,400,000,000 Industrial profit expanded by 3% organically.
We hit or exceeded all of our goals in 2015. Organic growth was up 3% with 80 basis points of margin expansion, leading to 7% organic profit growth. EPS was $1.31 up 17%. We achieved this despite having $0.05 of FX headwind. The verticals hit their plan and capital returned $4,300,000,000 to the parent.
Our cash and free cash flow execution was ahead of plan. We returned $33,000,000,000 to investors, including the excellent execution with Synchrony. We also executed a massive amount of portfolio change in the year. GE Capital Exits are ahead of plan with $157,000,000,000 of signings to date. The impact of Alstom was flat on EPS, slightly better than expected.
Alstom had an impact on several segments, and Jeff will take you through those results. But on balance, we like what we see in Alstom. And last week, we announced the disposition of appliances to Haier for $5,400,000,000 This will create an attractive gain and allow us to significantly increase our restructuring targets in 2016. So we're committed to our 2016 framework in the face of macroeconomic volatility. Now for orders.
Orders grew by 3%, which was up 1% organically. And as I said earlier, our backlog is $315,000,000,000 up 7% ex Alstom. Alstom added $29,000,000,000 to our backlog. Services grew by 5%, which was up 3% organically and equipment grew by 2%, which was down slightly organically. Service orders were strong.
Power gen service orders grew by 13% ex Alstom and commercial aviation service orders were up 14%. Healthcare service orders were up 3% and Alstom orders were $2,600,000,000 We had some nice wins with Alstom in China on the hydro business, several combined cycle gas turbine power plants with richer GE content and the Hinkley Point nuclear steam turbine in the United Kingdom. On the product side of GE, we also had some solid highlights. 2 I'll call out. Power booked 12 H Turbine orders in the quarter and we now have 33 in backlog.
In addition, we have another 49 technical selections. And in
Healthcare, our MR orders grew by 18%
in the quarter and our bioprocessing grew by 16% in the quarter, so great results by those businesses. Globally orders were generally positive, growing 8% in total and 12% of the growth regions. As I said earlier, we had strength in the Middle East and ASEAN and India, and Latin America was also decent. Including Alstom, China was up 15% in orders in the quarter and backlog grew by 16% to $21,000,000,000 Order pricing was up 0.9% in the quarter and we have good pricing momentum in both Aviation and Power. So overall, our backlog and orders pricing gives us high visibility as we approach our organic growth targets in 2016.
So let's talk about the execution of the team and what you saw in the segment results. Overall, the team executed in a tough environment and the quarter organic growth was down slightly, but for the year organic growth was up 3% with 7 of 8 segments growing. Service remained steady, up 5% in the year and 4% in the quarter organically. The oil and gas team, I'd really like to call out because I think they executed very well in 2015. With a 7% decline in revenue, their organic operating profit grew by 1% and this is ahead of what we said last year.
Our team executed on restructuring, they improved their value gap and they invested in their core franchise. And we expect the team to continue to execute in 2016. Looking at revenue in 2016, let me just give you a few metrics and some things to think about. We primarily ship from backlog, so orders and backlog growth matter. In 2015, 6 of 7 businesses grew backlog, some substantially.
When we do our analytics around convertible backlog and business performance, we see a path to 2% to 4% organic growth for 2016 even with a very difficult oil and gas market. The most robust part of our business is service. Service backlog grew by 16% in 2015, and we expect another year of 20% plus growth in our digital applications. Both these support sustained growth in services. We had another strong quarter year end margins.
For the year, industrial margins were up 80 basis points at the segment level and 110 basis points overall. Services were up 40 basis points and equipment was up 20 basis points. We continue to make good progress on value gap, up more than $450,000,000 on the year and cost productivity. Mix was favorable in the quarter and in addition, we have solid momentum for cost out. Again, due to the higher appliances gain, we can do a record level of restructuring in 2016 to fortify our framework.
Specifically, we believe we can execute on an incremental $1,700,000,000 in the year, which should yield incremental benefits. Last year, we discussed a new compensation plan that was aligned with investors and delivered results. I'm convinced that this incentivized our team to deliver superior results in 2015 and we have set our 2016 targets to drive our framework. Our strategy and business model is paying off and we believe we can deliver strong performance in the face of economic volatility. Now for cash.
CFOA grew for the year by 8%, industrial free cash flow grew by 4% and total free cash flow grew by 14% to $13,500,000,000 Total year core industrial cash flow ex Alstom was $12,600,000,000 up 3% and total year free cash flow conversion was 85%, in line with our expectations. GE Capital dividends were $4,300,000,000 for the year and we're still on track for $18,000,000,000 of dividends to the parent in 2016. The balance sheet is very strong and the price for appliances was a pleasant surprise. The business had been improving and there is strong interest in the business. At a price of $5,400,000,000 gives us more than $1,300,000,000 of incremental cash.
For capital allocation, we returned $33,000,000,000 in the year, including Synchrony. And looking at 2016, we're still on track to return $26,000,000,000 to investors in dividend and buyback. So before I turn over to Jeff, let me reflect a little on the Alstom results. We've integrated 2 months of revenue, all of the deal related costs and the impact of the joint ventures, all for the first time. There's inherent complexity as we go through it, so bear with us.
But in general, I would say the business and our outlook and our execution are on track and we're still excited about Alstom.
Thanks, Jeff. I'll start with the 4th quarter summary. Revenues were $33,900,000,000 up 1% in the quarter. Industrial revenues, including corporate, were up 3% to $31,300,000,000 You can see on the right side that industrial segments were down 1% reported and down 1% organic. Alstom revenue of $2,000,000,000 in the quarter was offset by $1,300,000,000 of foreign exchange and dispositions of $700,000,000 Industrial operating plus verticals EPS was $0.52 up 27% and that's driven by industrial up 27% and verticals flat.
The operating EPS number of $0.31 includes other continuing GE Capital activity, including headquarter runoff and other exit related items I'll cover in more detail shortly. $0.26 of continuing EPS includes the impact of non operating pension and net EPS of $0.64 includes discontinued operations. The total disc ops impact was a positive $3,700,000,000 driven by the $3,400,000,000 gain from Synchrony and earnings from the businesses held in sale. As Jeff said, we generated $16,400,000,000 of CFOA for the year. That's up 8%.
Industrial CFOA was $12,100,000,000 down 1%, but up 3% when you exclude Alstom CFOA and taxes associated with the disposition of signaling. The GE tax rate was 5%, bringing the total year rate to 14%. The tax rate in the quarter was driven by the appliances transaction moving into 2016, tax benefits associated with integrating our existing service business with Alsom's business in Switzerland, higher tax benefits principally on the signaling gain we had in the quarter and legislation making the U. S. Research credit permanent.
The reported GE Capital tax rate in the quarter of 39% reflects a tax benefit on a pre tax loss. The tax rate for the vertical businesses was a negative 13%, reflecting reduced income at EFS and international tax benefits that will diminish as we complete the GE Capital exit plan. Going forward as we complete the exit, we expect GE Capital vertical tax rate to be approximately 10%. On the right side of the segment results, as I mentioned, industrial segment revenues were down 1% reported and down 1% organic with foreign exchange and dispositions offsetting Alstom. The foreign exchange was $1,300,000,000 drag on industrial segment revenue and $163,000,000 impact on industrial segment op profit.
The power, renewables and energy management businesses were impacted by the Alstom acquisition and I'll walk you through the impact on the next page. At the December outlook meeting, we said we would present industrial results including corporate operating costs. On that basis, industrial op profit for the quarter was down 6% reported, but up 3% organically on strong corporate cost performance. To give you context on the quarter, organic revenue at down 1% was a little over $1,000,000,000 lower than we expected. This was driven by power, lower by about 350,000,000 dollars on expanded scope and BOP, aero and reciprocating engines that did not close in the quarter, about $400,000,000 in renewables on lower wind turbines, which I'll cover more on shortly, and $300,000,000 of softness in oil and gas and $100,000,000 of softness in convertible orders in our energy management business.
Most of the $1,000,000,000 was timing and we expect it to convert in 2016. For the full year, organic revenue was up 3%. What's laid out on this page is the impact of Alstom on the Power Renewables and Energy Management businesses. You can see the reported op profit of the businesses in the first column, the impact of Alstom in the middle column and the op profit and the Versus excluding Alstom on the right. Power on a standalone basis would have been down 5%, renewables would have been down 54% and energy management would have been up 4%.
The outsized impact of Alstom and Energy Management business is due to the JV structure of Digital Energy and the Alstom Grid business. We contributed positive earnings from Digital Energy to Alstom's business that had negative earnings. Remember that this is a fifty-fifty JV and we consolidate 100 percent of the revenue, but record only 50% of the earnings. In the case of Energy Management, the 17% organic V reflects the organic performance for the power conversion and industrial business, which is how we will report organic for this segment going forward. The organic V including digital energy would have been plus 19%.
In the quarter, the EPS impact of Alstom was breakeven with a pre tax loss of $234,000,000 in the segments and an additional $160,000,000 of deal costs and accounting items at corporate, offset by positive tax benefits. Revenue was $2,000,000,000 and orders were $2,600,000,000 As we look to 2016, no change to the guidance we gave you of $0.05 of EPS from Alstom. Next, I'll do the earnings walk as we've been doing for the last number of quarters, so you understand the dynamics clearly on what's going on in earnings. Starting with the first column on the left and working down, industrial operating net income was $4,600,000,000 and vertical income was $438,000,000 for total industrial plus verticals operating earnings of 5.1 $1,000,000,000 On the other GE Capital line, we incurred $2,100,000,000 of costs in the quarter. This was driven by restructuring charges, the preferred dividend payment, headquarter runoff operating expenses and excess interest costs.
We also took an impairment of about $800,000,000 related to the Homos City power plant asset, which I'll cover more on from the GE Capital page. As a result, total operating earnings were $3,000,000,000 Including non operating pension costs, continuing earnings were $2,600,000,000 We had a $3,700,000,000 of income in discontinued operations, principally related to the Synchrony gain. Adjusting for these items, net earnings for the quarter were 6,300,000,000 dollars In the center in the far right columns, you can see the associated EPS numbers and the variance versus prior year. On the next page, industrial and other items for the quarter. We had $0.04 of charges related to industrial restructuring and other items that were taken at corporate.
Charges were $567,000,000 on a pre tax basis with $160,000,000 of those charges related to the Alstom deal costs and accounting items. We also had $1,000,000,000 of industrial gains in the quarter, which equated to $0.08 of EPS at the transactional tax rates. The pre tax signaling gain was $622,000,000 and the appliance breakup fee was 175,000,000 Additionally, we sold our embedded controls business in energy management and our Clearance business in healthcare. On the bottom of the page, you can see the total year restructuring gains profile. We incurred restructuring charges of $0.12 and a gain of $0.11 for a net charge of $0.01 for the year.
This was $0.02 better than we communicated in December, driven by about a $0.01 of lower restructuring, primarily Alstom related and slightly higher gains driven by predominantly tax at the transaction level. For 2016, we expect gains and restructuring to largely offset for the year. However, there will be a quarterly variability in the timing. As Jeff mentioned, we signed the appliances transaction, which we expect to contribute about $0.20 of gain mid year this year. That combined with some smaller transactions should yield gains of about $0.25 in 2016.
We will use this opportunity to continue to invest in improving the industrial margins and cost. This will benefit us not only in 2016, but will position us well for 2017 2018. Now I'll go through the segments starting with the Power business. With the combination of Alstom into the Power segment, we have reorganized some of the sub businesses, so I'll take a minute to walk through these changes. First, the Thermal business was renamed Gas Power Systems.
This business includes gas turbines and steam and generators for combined cycle applications. And additionally, we moved the equipment side of our aero turbines business to gas power systems. 2nd, the power services business includes our PGS business and services related to aero turbines. The distributed power business now includes just our reciprocating engines and the service businesses for Jahn Barker and Waukesha. Additionally, as you know, we have a standalone steam business that we acquired from Alstom.
Moving to the financial results, orders in the quarter of $9,600,000,000 including $1,000,000,000 of Alstom orders grew 40%. Excluding Alstom, orders were $8,600,000,000 up 25% with equipment orders up 46% and services up 8%. Within equipment orders, Gas Power Systems was higher by 60% ex Alstom. The increase was driven by orders for 55 gas turbines versus 41 last year and expanded scope including BOP for a large Saudi 7F order. In the Q4, we took new orders for 12H turbines versus 2 last year.
Five units in the U. S, 4 in Pakistan and 3 in Asia. Our H backlog now totals 33 with an additional 49 technical selections for a total of 82 units. Aero Turbine orders were down 14% on 43 units versus 50 last year and distributed power engines were lower by 12% with weakness in Waukesha gas compression, partly offset by strong orders in Jendbacher. Equipment OPI was strong at 6.7% driven by H Turbine demand.
Service orders excluding Alstom grew 8% on higher installations growth in multiyear contracts and strong upgrades. AGPs totaled 42 for the quarter versus 26 a year ago, bringing total year orders on AGPs to 119. Alstom orders, as I mentioned, totaled $1,000,000,000 including 2 steam turbines and 6 HSRGs, 1 in conjunction with GE orders. Ex Alstom, equipment backlog ended at $8,300,000,000 up 15%. Service backlog grew 4% to $53,000,000,000 In total, power backlog ended the year at $62,000,000,000 ex Alstom and $77,000,000,000 with Alstom.
Core GE revenues were $6,200,000,000 down 10% and down 7% organically. Equipment revenues were down 25% driven by fewer gas turbine shipments, foreign exchange and lower balance of plant. In the quarter, the business shipped 28 gas turbines versus 44 a year ago. Total year shipments were 107 units. Lower units and lower BOP were driven by no repeat of the large Algerian deal in the Q4 of last year.
Service revenues were up 1% driven by power services up 8%. AGPs were 35 in the quarter versus 24 a year ago, bringing total shipments to 104 for the year. Strength in power service was partly offset by lower distributed power service down 15%. Alstom revenues in the quarter totaled $917,000,000 with $255,000,000 from equipment and $662,000,000 from services. GE core operating profit was $1,700,000,000 down 5%.
The decrease was driven by lower volume and partially offset by positive value gap. Margins improved 140 basis points in the quarter. Alstom operating profit was a loss of $80,000,000 reflecting operations, deal costs and accounting adjustments. Given the scale of the Alstom consolidation on our first close, things went reasonably well. The core business came in a little lower on revenue than expected, driven by the timing of BOP and aero engine shipments.
However, orders were better than expected on strong demand for both H and F products, particularly in Saudi and Pakistan. 2016 is a big execution year with the Alstom integration, shipping approximately 24H turbines and executing on our product cost strategy. In total, we expect to ship 110 gas turbines and 125 AGPs with 60% to 65% of these units shipping in the second half of the year in twenty sixteen. Next, I'll cover renewables. Total renewable orders were $2,500,000,000 in the quarter, up 1%.
Excluding Alstom, orders were $2,000,000,000 down 18% and down 10% ex foreign exchange. We took orders for 827 wind turbines versus 12 51 a year ago in the quarter. The decline was a result of lower U. S. Orders, partly driven by the strength in the Q4 of last year related to the PTC extension.
This year, the PTC extension includes a multiyear phase out. Orders were also impacted by the shift from the 1.x product line to the new 2.x and 3.x products that drive fewer units, but more megawatts. Additionally, we had 3 deals delayed to 2016 for a total of 240 turbines or above $550,000,000 of orders. Orders outside the U. S.
Were up 19% ex FX and down 2% reported with strength in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia. Backlog in the renewables core business ended at $7,100,000,000 up 27% year over year. Alstom Renewable orders were $469,000,000 in the quarter with a large hydro win of $400,000,000 in China at the Three Gorges project. Alstom added $5,300,000,000 of backlog to the renewables business. Renewables revenue for the 4th quarter totaled 1,900,000,000 dollars lower by 16% and down 8% ex exchange.
The legacy GE business had revenue of $1,900,000,000 down 20% reported and down 12% ex foreign exchange. Core unit shipments were 847 in the quarter versus 1081 last year. This was lower than expected as 2 deals for 165 turbines pushed into 2016. Operating profit ex Alstom was $125,000,000 down 54%. The decline was attributable to lower volume of 2 34 units, negative mix from the new 2.x product as we come down the cost curve and foreign exchange.
Alstom op profit was a loss of $69,000,000 In 2016, we expect to ship about 3,050 onshore turbines, including 250 of Alstom wind units. As Jeff discussed earlier, 2016 organic revenues should be high single digits to low double digits depending on the mix of units shipped. Core op profit should be flat to up slightly as the business is focused on improving the cost curve for the new 2.03.0 megawatt product launches and delivering $100,000,000 of Alstom cost synergies. Next on aviation, global passenger air travel continues to grow robustly, up 6.7% in November year to date. Both domestic and international markets are strong, particularly in the Middle East and Asia Pacific.
Airfreight volume grew 2.3% November year to date. Orders in the Q4 of $6,800,000,000 were down 16%. Commercial engine orders were down 47% as expected. We booked $1,900,000,000 of engine orders including $100,000,000 of GE90, dollars 600,000,000 of Gen X orders, dollars 400,000,000 of LEAP CFM orders and $500,000,000 of CF6 orders. Commercial equipment backlog ended the year at $29,500,000,000 up 11%.
Military equipment orders of $353,000,000 in the quarter were higher by 2 times under Large Navy F414 order. Service orders were higher by 9% with strong commercial spares orders up 10% to 39,000,000 a day and CSAs were up 24% in the quarter. Military services were down 20%. Services backlog ended the year at over $116,000,000,000 up 15% versus last year. Revenues of $6,700,000,000 were up 5% with commercial equipment revenues down 5%.
We shipped 59 Gen X units versus 77 last year driven by schedule. We have no delinquencies to Boeing. Military equipment revenue was down 1% and services revenue was up strongly at 18% driven by commercial services up 24 percent. Operating profit grew 12% on strength in services, positive value gap and good cost productivity. Operating margin rates improved 160 basis points.
The aviation team delivered another solid execution year. For the year, revenues grew 3%, operating profit grew 11% and margins expanded 160 basis points. Our share on each of our engine platforms is very strong and the LEAP launch remains on track for mid year. We expect another solid year from David Joyce and the team at Aviation. Next is oil and gas.
The segment continues to operate in a very difficult environment we continue to be focused on being hyper competitive on new opportunities and very aggressive on the cost structure. For the Q4, orders of $3,300,000,000 were down 35% and down 28% organically. Equipment orders were down 52% or 44% organically. All segments had lower orders driven by delays and reduced CapEx spending with the exception of our downstream platform, which grew orders 51% reported and up 84% organically. For the other segments on a reported basis, Subsea was down 49%, TMS was down 78% and Surface was down 65%.
Service orders were down 17% and down 13% organically. On a reported basis, TMS was down 24%, surface was down 29%, subsea was down 35% and M and C was down 8%, partly offset by downstream, which grew service orders by 20%. Not included in orders, but included in backlog, TMS signed 4 new long term service agreements totaling $1,500,000,000 in the quarter. Total backlog ended the year at about $23,000,000,000 which was down 9% versus last year and down 4% ex exchange. Revenues in the quarter were down 16% reported and down 6% organic.
Foreign exchange reduced revenues $437,000,000 in the quarter. Equipment revenues were down 21% reported and 12% organically. By business, surface was down 49%, TMS down 18%, Subsea down 15%. Organically, TMS was down 8% and Subsea was down 5%. Service revenues were down 9% and flat The business continued to deliver on cost reductions and deflation, which partially offset the negative volume and price.
Margin rates were down 70 basis points. On an organic basis, margins contracted 10 basis points. The business executed an early and aggressive cost out program beginning in 2014, delivering $600,000,000 of cost out during 2015. For the year, revenue and non profit were down 5% and up 1% respectively, and organic margin rates actually expanded 90 basis points. For 2016, our best view for revenues and our profit continues to be down 10% to 15%, most likely at the bottom end of that range, given the outlook for the industry and our view of volume and price.
Our base plan at December outlook call for $400,000,000 of cost out in 2016 to get to the $1,000,000,000 run rate over 2015 2016. We are working another $400,000,000 of additional cost out reductions to offset the likely lower volume and price pressure. We expect the first half to be tougher year over year versus the second half. And Lorenzo and his team have executed very well in 2015 and we expect the business will continue to outperform on a relative basis in 2016. Next up in Healthcare, orders of $5,200,000,000 were down 4%, but up 1% organically.
Geographically, orders in the U. S. Were down 1%, Europe was down 8% and up 4% ex FX and the Middle East region was down 4% and up 5% ex FX. China was down 6% reported and down 3% ex FX. Tenders in China continue to improve slowly.
Year over year tenders were flat after several quarters of contraction. In terms of business lines, healthcare systems orders were down 6% and down 1% excluding exchange. The U. S. Was down 2% driven by lower molecular imaging and x-ray on tough comparisons offset partially by strong MR up 33% and ultrasound up 5% on new product upgrades.
Europe was down 8% reported, but grew 5% ex foreign exchange. Europe was up 5% ex FX for the year and has seen 6 consecutive quarters of organic growth. China orders were down 11% reported and down 9% excluding exchange. Our current outlook for 2016 is for orders growth in China as government tenders begin to rebound. Life Sciences continue to perform very well.
In the Q4, orders grew 2%, up 8% ex exchange. Within Life Sciences, bioprocess grew 16% ex FX with strength in Korea, China and the U. S. Healthcare revenues were down 3% reported and up 3% ex FX. Healthcare Systems revenues were lower by 4%, reported and up 3% ex FX and Life Sciences revenues grew 6% excluding exchange.
Operating profit was lower versus the Q4 of last year by 4% excluding exchange and lower by 8% reported. Volume growth and cost productivity were more than offset by price and higher growth investments. Margin rates contracted 100 basis points in the quarter. In 2016, we expect John and the Healthcare business to improve operationally in terms of earnings and margin rates. Our outlook is for the Life Science business to continue to grow strongly profitably and for the HCS business to execute the digital transformation and aggressively reduce product and service costs.
In transportation, North American carloads were down 6.4% in the quarter, driven by very weak carloads and coal down almost 20% and petroleum down 13%. Intermodal volume was also down 1% in the quarter. For the year, volume was down 2.2% driven by commodities with intermodal higher by 2%. Lower volume and operational improvements have improved velocity on the rails, on average 2.4 miles an hour, that's up 10% versus last year. For our business, orders in the quarter were very strong, up 66 percent to $3,200,000,000 driven by equipment orders up 113%.
We took our largest order ever of 1,000 locals in India and also secured an order for 100 Tier 4s in the U. S. Service orders were down 6% ex signaling on lower overhaul volume driven by increased park locos. Revenues were up 2% reported and up 11% ex signaling. Equipment revenues were higher by 17%, 27% organically, principally driven by locomotives, partly offset by services down 8% on lower overhauls.
Our profit was higher in the quarter by 18% ex signaling and up 8% reported. Increased local volume, value gap and productivity drove earnings higher. Margins improved 100 basis points reported and 120 basis points organically. The transportation team delivered a tremendous year. Excluding the Signaling sale, they grew revenue 7%, operating profit 16% and improved margins 150 basis points.
They launched and delivered 425 Tier 4 locomotives on time, on cost and the performance has significantly exceeded customer expectations. 2016 is going to be a more challenging year with softer demand in the U. S. And in the commodity markets. We shipped 985 logos in 2015 and expect to ship about 800 in 2016.
The team is executing an aggressive cost plan to address the lower volume. We expect the business to be down mid single digits on our profit in 2016. On Energy Management, as I mentioned earlier, describing results for Energy Management is complicated by the contribution of our digital energy business to the GRID JV. For financial reporting purposes, we'll report 100 percent of the Grid JV's orders and revenues, but only report 50% of their earnings. Going forward, we will report results on this basis, but all our organic calculations will include only Industrial Solutions and the power conversion business.
Orders in the quarter were $2,600,000,000 up 15% reported. Of the $2,600,000,000 1,100,000,000 dollars was from the grid business with Alstom contributing $716,000,000 and digital energy business contributing $342,000,000 Digital energy orders were down 10% reported and down 8% organically. Power conversion orders were down 17% and down 11% organically on no repeat of large renewable orders in the Q4 of last year. For the total year, power conversion orders were very strong, up 19% organically. Industrial Solutions orders in the quarter were down 17% reported and down 11% organically, driven by foreign exchange and dispositions.
North America demand in the quarter was weak across all Industrial Solutions segments. Backlog for the quarter ended at $11,700,000,000 Reported revenues of $2,400,000,000 were higher by 20%. Grid Solutions revenue totaled 9 $52,000,000 inclusive of $393,000,000 of digital energy revenue. Industrial Solutions revenues were down 8% and down 4% organically. Power conversion was down 6%, but up 9% organically.
Reported op profit for the Energy Management segment was $33,000,000 which includes the effects of establishing the Grid JV and Alstom's results. Before the effects of Alstom, as I covered earlier, Energy Management earned $118,000,000 of op earned $118,000,000 of our profit, up 4% driven by productivity and the gain on sale in our meters business, partly offset by lower Industrial Solutions volume. The contribution of our digital energy business to the Grid JV combined with the Alstom Grid operating results equaled the loss, which we recorded at 50% or $5,000,000 Next, we announced last week and Jeff spoke about it earlier, we have an agreement to sell our appliance unit to High Air, which we expect to close mid year. 4th quarter results for both appliances and lighting had revenue essentially flat. Appliance revenue was up slightly from last year and lighting saw a flat revenue and growth organically.
LED growth in the quarter was 28%. Operating profit for the segment was up 28% with very strong performance in appliances up 51% on strong cost performance and up 4% organically in Lighting, but down 10% reported driven by foreign exchange. The appliance team had a strong year essentially doubling profits and expanding margins significantly. They've also done an outstanding job managing the business through this disposition process. Lastly, I'll cover GE Capital.
Our verticals businesses earned $438,000,000 this quarter, that's up 7% from prior year, driven by operations and higher tax benefits, partially offset by lower gains. Portfolio quality remained stable and the aviation portfolio finished the quarter with 0 delinquencies and only 2 AOGs. Working down the page, GE Capital Corporate generated a $2,000,000,000 loss in the quarter, principally driven by restructuring and other charges related to the GE Capital transformation, preferred dividend payments, excess interest costs, including the costs associated with the debt exchange we completed in October and headquarters operating costs. In the current quarter, we took an impairment of approximately $800,000,000 on our Homewood City coal power plant in the U. S.
Related to a decision to exit the investment over time. This investment was not strategic to the verticals go forward business and this action will align its portfolio more closely to the GE store going forward. This charge is within the framework of $23,000,000,000 charge to affect the GE Capital Transformation. Discontinued operations, which now includes the consumer segment generated earnings of 3,700,000,000 dollars primarily driven by a $3,400,000,000 gain associated with the Synchrony split off as well as the earnings and gains from discontinued operation. Overall, GE Capital reported $2,100,000,000 of and we ended the quarter with $167,000,000,000 of ENI excluding liquidity.
The verticals ended the quarter with $79,000,000,000 of ENI excluding liquidity. Our liquidity levels remain very strong at 91,000,000,000 dollars Our Basel III Tier 1 common ratio was 14.5 percent, which is up 80 basis points from the 3rd quarter after paying dividends of $3,900,000,000 during the quarter, bringing our total dividends in 2015 to 4,300,000,000 dollars Asset sales made ahead of plan and we ended the year with $157,000,000,000 of signed deals and $104,000,000,000 of deals closed. Overall, Keith and the GE Capital team have executed ahead of schedule on all aspects versus the plan we shared with you back in April. We expect to be largely complete by the end of 2016 and are on track to file for SIFI rescission in the Q1 of this year. And with that, I'll turn it back to Jeff.
So let me end by going through our operating framework. This is the framework I showed in December. We have no change, but are increasing our goals for disposition cash.
I know a lot has happened early
in the year, but 2015 closed about where we thought it would. So let's start with organic growth of 2% to 4%. We finished 2015 with $315,000,000,000 of backlog. Earlier, I outlined how we achieved those goals even in the face of a tougher oil and gas market. We have broad business and geographic diversity and service, which is 80% of our earnings, should continue to grow by 3% to 5% in 2016.
We had 2 months of Alstom in 2015 and so far so good. We think our synergies are achievable. And with the appliances transaction, we're now looking at the ability to fund incremental restructuring. In addition, this gives us upside to our disposition cash for the year. All of our goals for GE Capital remain on track.
Our dispositions are a year ahead of plan. Capital dividends are the key to returning about $26,000,000,000 to you this year, and we plan to file for SIFI de designation later this quarter.
We're acting to get more out
of this economy. We're aggressively managing our cost structure to capitalize on deflation. We have a very strong balance sheet with substantial cash. We have the ability to finance our industrial products, which is a huge advantage. Our diversity in both regions and markets allows us to outperform single purpose competitors.
We can move production to the lowest cost regions and capitalize on currency or excess capacity. We have all the elements to help ourselves in a tough economy, buyback capacity, substantial restructuring funding and services growth. And we've continued to invest. Our long term commitments for R and D, globalization, investments like Alstom have built a huge backlog. So just to recap some of our highlights for 2016.
Double digit EPS growth, returning $26,000,000,000 of cash, Alstom integration, digital execution, there's really a lot of value here in GE. So Matt, now let me turn it back over to you for some questions.
Thanks, Jeff. Operator, please open up the lines for questions.
Our first question is from Scott Davis with Barclays.
Hi, good morning guys.
Hey, Scott. Good morning.
One of the things that's changed in the last couple of months is the severe currency devaluations we've seen in some of the emerging markets out there. But your order book in EM seems to be pretty good. I mean, are you pricing can you just give us a sense of kind of current and past? Are you pricing contracts in U. S.
Dollars? Are you pricing them in local currency? Or is there a mix? Just a little color there.
Oh, gosh. Maybe I'll do
a little bit on
the geographic side, Scott, and then give you a sense. We had a very strong Q4 in the Middle East. That was a lot driven by power. Pricing actually was pretty good on those transactions for the quarter. I'd say on balance, the pricing we've experienced on power, rail, aviation, those show up in the pricing and the backlog and the order book.
So I don't think we've seen really any diminution of pricing in the emerging market orders. As you know guys, our stuff is lumpy. So there's big transactions, but I don't we don't see any of that. I don't know, Jeff, would you add to that?
Just a couple of things. So what we do in China, there's been very little, albeit a little bit more lately, the differences in exchange between the U. S. And China are pretty de minimis. A lot of our businesses like aviation are dollar based.
And then obviously, in oil and gas and a number of energy management and a number of other businesses, we do work in local currency. And so Brazil, where we're in Brazil and Europe and the Euro, we've had a little bit of a currency impact and that's what you hear us reporting when we give you reported versus organic. On the orders front, I don't think we've seen that big an impact. And when you look at orders in the quarter, particularly in Power, orders price has been very, very good, very strong, particularly on the H Turbine, largely because we're selling out slots.
Yes. That makes sense. And then just moving to oil and gas, how is $30 oil impact your 2016 outlook? And I guess what I mean is that you have I mean, 2015 was pretty amazing with the cost out. I mean, you haven't seen decremental margins at all in that business.
And is that sustainable at are there break points in oil prices where it's just not sustainable anymore to maintain that type of drop through?
So again, Scott, what I would say is that just on a macro comment, there's still a lot of efficiencies we have in our oil and gas business, both in the supply chain. And so I think what Jeff talked about earlier in terms of the ability to do incremental restructuring, it's still out there. And then I would just segment our business into kind of project based business where we're still in execution mode and that's probably 70% or 80% of our total revenues. And then businesses like drilling and surface that are probably the most susceptible as oil pricing goes down to $30 where trying to stay ahead on the cost curve is going to be very difficult in the future. And we just need to be flexible as at a $30 environment, the one we see today.
But that's a very small portion of our overall oil and gas business.
Yes, I would just add, I'll just expound a little bit on what Jeff said. So if you think about the business, our long term more contractual and project based stuff, Turbomachinery, Downstream and Subsea, that's about 65% of our revenue in 2016. And of those revenues, more than 70% of those were in backlog. If you add the M and C business on top of that, which tends to be more flow and convertible, but it's about roughly 50% exposure to oil and gas and 50% to non oil and gas, That's 85% of revenue. And when you add M and C, you've got about a little bit north of 65% of next year's revenues and backlog.
So to Jeff's point, the real short term exposure today anyway as we look at it is service and drilling and they are very susceptible to volatility around what they see for convertible demand in any period of time, but it's 15% of the revenue.
But again, Jeff, I'd come back and because of appliances guys, we have kind of $2,000,000,000 plus of restructuring that wasn't in our plan when we stood in front of you in December. So
let me just
go back to that. And Sadat is going
to go to 1 again.
Yes. So I was going to follow on with that. So the way we think about it, within the range of down 10% to 15%, Everything else being, we may be at the lower end of the range. We may be closer to down 15%. We came into the year, we told you we had a plan to take $400,000,000 of cost out on top of the $600,000,000 of cost out we delivered in 20 15 for a total of $1,000,000,000 over the 2 years, dollars 2015 and 2016.
We're now going after an incremental $400,000,000 on top of that. So now we're trying to deliver $800,000,000 of cost out in 2016 and appliances is an important part of our ability to do that. So we're going to invest more aggressively in 2016 in restructuring the oil and gas footprint than we even did in 2015. And so that gives us, Scott, some ability to moderate potentially if revenues are even lower or at the lower end of the range, that we can moderate the impact on profitability.
Yes. It sounds like appliances was timed just right. So good luck. Congrats, guys.
Thanks. I'll
step off. Thanks.
Thanks, Scott.
The next question is from Julian Mitchell with Credit Suisse.
Hi, thank you.
Hey, Julian. Good morning.
Hey, good
morning. Just a quick question firstly on Alstom. The core business, as you say, lost money on the EBIT line in Q4. You've talked about €200,000,000 of core Alstom profit in 2016. How quickly do you think the business goes back to profits?
Or is it sort of a second half turnaround on the core Alstom business?
Well, I think that we expect that we're off and running on the synergies as we speak. Having said that, most of those synergies and most of the improvement in the core operations is going to happen with will accelerate over the course of the year. I think we feel very good about the guidance we gave you in December around the outlook for Alstom in 2016 and $0.05 contribution. That today feels very solid. And I'd go back to what we said about 2015 on that call.
We came in almost line item by line item virtually right on top of what we told you. We're a little better in tax than we estimated. But the other elements of the cost and the operations we talked about on that call is exactly where we came in and ended up also in the Q4 ended up being essentially breakeven with tax or zero drag on EPS. So I think right now we're on course and the benefits and the improvement will accelerate as you would expect over the course of the year.
I would echo what Jeff said, Julien. Look, as you guys can see, this is a large complicated transaction to get it integrated. But when we look underlying in terms of customer response and geographic opportunities and things like that, I think this is everything we thought it would be. So now we just got to get out there and execute.
Great. And then just a quick follow-up on Healthcare. The profits there were down, I think, about 9% in the second half of twenty fifteen. You're guiding profits up in 2016. What is it that's really swinging there sort of from the second half to the next 12 months?
Look, I think, Julian, when I think about healthcare in 2016, this should be
lowtomidsingledigitsorganicrevenuegrower
with margin enhancement, okay? That's what investors should expect in healthcare. I think when you look at the second half of last year, we allowed the business to spend incrementally on NPI, to make some changes in their IT business to invest more. So basically, I think we allowed them to increase their spending in the second half. That should be opportunities when we look in the future, better VCP, better NPIs, and I expect healthcare to have a decent 2016.
We're going to deliver a better product cost profile in 2016.
Great. Thank you.
Next question comes from Andrew Kaplowitz with Citi.
Good morning, guys.
Hey, Andrew.
Jeff, so can you talk about your ability to grow margin for the company in 2016? If you look at 4Q, you had one 110 basis points of gross margin improvement ex Alstom despite declining organic sales. Your value gap and mix gave you 100 basis points of that improvement. So given higher margin services orders are growing faster than equipment and raw material costs are coming down, could you sustain the 100 basis points you saw in the quarter from mix and value gap as you move forward?
So, great question. Our goal what we've told folks is year on year, we have a target to improve margins 50 basis points. That's true as well in 2016. So the geography of where that improvement comes from, I think will be largely the same. I think value gap will contribute a little bit less in 2016 to the margin expansion.
I think variable cost productivity or productivity general will or product cost, if you will, will contribute more. And then corporate and SG and A will also contribute in 2016. So we're still on the 50 basis point March at our profit and down through corporate costs or industrial margins. But the mix between what value gap contributes and what we get out of productivity is going to change a little bit.
I would also say, guys, last year was the 1st year of our IC plan, what we call the AIP. More than half the businesses have gross margin targets. They all have margin targets. This has been really a good driver of these results and we think we've set the bar appropriate in 2016 to get the same kind of benefits.
And then I would say on mix, you mentioned services growth for equipment. That's important actually. There's no question about it. We need big service businesses, PGS and Aviation to grow and deliver what they because we have these product launches. So we've got the H turbine coming next year.
We've got a little over 100 LEAP engines launching next year. And we got the 2.X and 3.X wind turbines going. So continuing the momentum in services is very, very important to the overall story.
Jeff, if I could just follow-up on service for a second. Your organic service orders slowed slightly in the quarter from 4Q versus 3Q, but still good at 3%. You guys are guiding at 3% to 5% service growth. Can you talk about the sustainability of your service business, especially in power in the current environment? And how much is digital really helping?
Because I mean, it seems like robust growth there.
Yes. Look, I mean, I would start again with the digital focus, which is growing 20% -ish, not just in power, but in other businesses. But we also have very targeted programs in all of our businesses to go after the aged installed base. Alstom brings unique capabilities to the power business. Aviation guys, we're still seeing good revenue passenger miles.
There's lots of opportunities for our aviation business to continue to grow. Healthcare is actually after several years of flat revenue and services is actually growing 3% or 4% the last few quarters. So we're very programmatic in the service side. I think we see that continuing in the next year with digital being the number one driver. And at the end of the day, I think in an environment like this, this is the ballast for the company is the installed base.
The only thing I'd add is the upgrade. So we think we'll do at least 125 AGPs that share and every one of the businesses is really pushing out the upgrade. The
next question is from Andrew Obin with Bank of America.
Just a question on restructuring. Now that you have this extra $0.20 from the appliances, I'm sure you did have some restructuring built into your number before because you were expecting appliance sale in the middle of the year. But given that the gain brings restructuring and you have a lot more restructuring this year, does that mean that there is more cushion to the numbers or does that mean that the core guidance is actually reflecting more macro headwinds?
Okay. So in our core plan, we expected to do about $1,700,000,000 pre tax restructuring in 2016. We will double that with appliances. And so we will do a lot heavier restructuring. First of all, we're going to try to accelerate a lot of what we're going to do in Alstom in 2017 2018 as much of that as we can execute, we're going to try to accelerate.
We're going to do more, as I mentioned earlier, in oil and gas. And every one of the businesses, we're going to do more around the product service cost footprint of the company. So it does both things. When we spend that incremental money, there'll be some amount of benefit in 2016. But maybe even more importantly, it's a great base to work from for 2017 2018 and will help us continue to deliver these margin improvements that you've seen.
I would add Andrew, look, I'm going
to say the same thing today that I said a year ago. Every one of our businesses has a very detailed incentive compensation plan that internally just like last year rolls up to more than we talk about externally. And that's the way we've run the place, that's the way we continue to run the place. And I look at the ability to do incremental restructuring as a good opportunity for us to continue to deliver good results.
And just a follow-up question, are you guys seeing any signs of stabilization in China because that seems to be a big concern? I apologize if I missed your remarks in the beginning.
Yes. Look, I think for us, the first thing I'd say, there's no one China, right? I don't think macro anymore when I talk about China, I think micro. I think about aviation, healthcare, power, mining, that's how I think everybody's got to start thinking about China. Now aviation remains super strong, right?
I think on the power side, it's going to become a gas more predominantly a gas turbine market. It's been cyclical, but I like how we're positioned in the future in China there. And the 3rd business is healthcare. Healthcare has had a tough couple of years. I think the sense of our team is that we feel that's stabilizing.
By tough, I mean, it's gone from up 10% to 15%, maybe flat to down slightly, right? So our team, I think, has seen some signs of stabilization there. That to me is the swinger, let's say, on China. But aviation is super strong even today.
Thank you very much.
Great. Thanks.
The next question is from Joe Ritchie with Goldman Sachs.
Good morning, guys. So maybe following up on Andrew's question slightly differently. I guess as you go into 2016 and take a look back into 2015, industrial EBIT grew very low single digits this past year. And as we head into 2016, there are a lot of headwinds, whether it's orders down, mix is becoming a bigger headwind, and then you've clearly oil and gas pressures are intensifying. And so what I'm trying to understand is how much of the incremental improvement in Industrial segment EBIT is going to be driven by the restructuring actions that you're taking?
Well,
let me go back and try to help you with that in terms of what 20 15 was. So in the Q4, our restructuring efforts delivered a little over $220,000,000 of benefits and those are restructurings that started in 2014 and some of them were executed in 2015, etcetera. And for the year, that was about $1,000,000,000 of value, if you will, against margins. In 2016, we'll roll forward and based on what we did in 2015 and the benefits realizing in 2016 and the incremental spend in 2016, I mean everything else being equal, we would expect that or more and more, to flow to industrial EBIT in 2016. And yes, it's part and parcel about remaking the competitiveness of this company around products and service cost and it's critically important.
And our track record, I think, over the last couple of years of these businesses delivering back the margin improvements based on the restructuring spend, I think has been on balance very good.
Yes. No, that's fair. And it has been good and clearly should help provide a tailwind for 2017 and twenty 18. Maybe one follow-up question, Jeff. Just a reminder on the $35,000,000,000 and the composition of the $35,000,000,000 dividend from the asset sales and leverage.
And has that changed at all just that asset prices have come down a little bit at the start this year?
No. So Keith and the team have done an absolutely remarkable job executing against this plan. As you know, Jeff mentioned, I'll just reiterate a little bit just to get baseline everybody, dollars 157,000,000,000 of signings, dollars 104,000,000,000 of asset closings in 2015. In 2016, we'll sign something on order of magnitude of another $50,000,000,000 in deals. We expect more than half of that to happen hopefully here in the first half of the year.
And we'll close, we'll get wire transfers for about another $100,000,000,000 of closings in 20 16. And so far, we're tracking slightly better on a price of tangible book, what we presented in April of next year. And we think everything else being equal as we sit here today with $50,000,000,000 of signings to go, all of which are in process that we're going to end up at or maybe incrementally slightly better on the price to tangible book when we get through the end of this process, hopefully at the end of 2016.
Okay. Thanks guys. I'll get back in queue.
Thanks.
The next question is from Steven Winoker with Bernstein.
Thanks and good morning. Hey Steve.
Hey. So you've covered a
lot of ground, but one of
the things on Page 4, the simplification SG and A cost being flat in the Q4. Just maybe run us through the dynamics there in terms of it coming down off of the prior savings you've been seeing in quarter after quarter there?
Sure. So we had $224,000,000 of SG and A structural cost out in the quarter that was down 7% year over year. For the year, we were down about $800,000,000 or about 6%. And the reason you see it as not contributing to the margin performance is because that $224,000,000 came out at about the same rate as volume came down in the quarter. So it's not that we didn't get cost out, we absolutely did.
It's not that we lost any momentum. 224 is about the middle of what we've been each of the last 4 quarters, actually probably closer to last 8 quarters. It's just that volume was down and so it didn't contribute. We expect I think we said in December, we expect to improve SG and A to sales in 2016. And so you should expect it to show up on that line as contributing to the margin expansion in 2016 as it did for 30 basis points this year.
Okay. Sounds good. And then if I just want to clarify on the pricing again, when you point to the 3.8% in Power and you talk about the turbine driving a lot of that, you guys are how are you thinking about like for like pricing versus mix? Is that is all like for like pricing, it's not driving the mix?
Yes. That's all like for
like. Okay. All right. And Paul, 3
go ahead. I'm sorry.
No, go ahead.
I was just going to say, I think what the team has done in this H launch is pretty remarkable. So all the growth in the heavy duty gas market is this class of turbine. The gigawatts get added over the next couple of years, 75% of that is going to come from this class of turbine. They've gone from no share to a very high level of share. And this is about $300,000,000 of price in the quarter on the H.
And it's effectively we're selling slots out. So it's been a terrific story. Okay.
I'll pass it on. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Steve.
The next question is from Jeffrey Sprague with Vertical Research Partners.
Hey, Jeff. Good morning. How are you?
How are you? Great.
Hey, just back to kind of the whole restructuring dynamic and kind of understanding the bridge into 2016. So I think your guide for 2016 roughly implies about $19,000,000,000 in segment OP if we use the December construct. So just building off $18,000,000,000 in 2015 with over $1,000,000,000 in restructuring savings and Alstom of 600,000,000 dollars Is that how we should be thinking about it? So you have kind of core erosion elsewhere in the portfolio of $400,000,000 $500,000,000
I don't think so. Jeff. I don't have that reconciliation in front of me, Jeff. We'll get back to you on that. But here's how we've thought about the bridge is, when we go from 2015 to 2016, we will get incremental restructuring savings.
As a V, we earned $1,000,000,000 of restructuring savings in 2015. We think we'll be better than 2016, but it won't be $1,000,000,000 better than it was in 2015. We'll get margin expansion and organic growth at 2% to 4%. And the only decrement, if you will, as you describe it is, we are overcoming the launch costs and the launch margins associated with the LEAP and the H, the wind turbines, etcetera, etcetera. So we will grow we'll grow our profit next year.
I don't have the bridge exactly in front of me at the moment, but
But segment by segment, powers up ex Alstom, renewables up ex Alstom, aviation up, healthcare up, transportation, I think we said down slightly, energy management up. So segment by segment, Jeff, I think attracts the positive operating profit growth for next year.
Okay. Roughly $19,000,000,000 is a good place to be there on the segment side?
Yes. I think it's yes,
dollars 19,000,000,000 is it's roughly $19,000,000,000
Okay.
A little better than $19,000,000,000
Yes. And then just back to kind of the macro, can you give us a little bit of sense on how much of your backlog is in Middle Eastern areas or kind of areas where you've got really resource pressures on government budgets and the like?
Well, I mean, I think, Jeff, the let me just
Yes.
I don't know the regional split on backlog. Now obviously, our power business, obviously, from a power generation perspective has got a big backlog associated with the Middle East. Our oil and gas business has a backlog that's associated with West Africa, Brazil and the Middle East. We have a big backlog in aviation associated with it, Emirates, Qatar Airlines, etcetera. I don't think in the case of power or aviation that we have concerns about our Middle East backlog and any resources for?
I was
going to reflect on that to a certain extent. I think, Jeff, we've always talked about the resource rich regions being more or less $30,000,000,000 or something like that for the company. But in the Q4, we had a record orders quarter in Saudi Arabia. Our business in Latin America has because again, demand for electricity has grown 8% last year, good aviation backlogs, things like that. So I think the diversification of the mix of businesses we have is still pretty positive even in regions like Saudi Arabia.
Right. And then maybe just one last one. The order price index info is helpful. I wonder if you could share with us kind of the price impact on revenues in the quarter.
Yes.
So give me one second. So in revenues in the quarter, we had price of about $150,000,000 About $100,000,000 of that came from Power. Aviation was strong as well. And then as you would expect, healthcare had negative price of roughly $100,000,000 Most everybody had modest positive price.
The next question is from Deane Dray with RBC Capital Markets.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Hey, Deane.
Hey, just a couple of cleanup questions here. Just to go back to the appliances deal, we've gotten a lot questions about this that the deal you struck with higher significantly more favorable than Electrolux gain of $0.20 versus $0.06 How did the deal all come together? I know they're not directly comparable, but just give us a sense on how it played out.
Well, again, Dean, I think we were we followed the process with Electrolux until December 7. So that kind of ran course. That gave us the ability to kind of look to see what other outcomes would be important for the business. There was a tremendous after December 7, there was a tremendous amount of interest in the business. I think what you have to keep in mind is that the EBITDA of the business is better over the while we were in the process.
The multiples in the industry improved while we're in the process. And I think what we always knew was true about the appliance business is that it had a favorable position in the North American market that was valued by people on the outside and that's what we saw in the 30 days kind of post December 7. I would add, Dean, we wanted to move quickly because the business had been for sale for 2 years and it's just there was a real reason for us to kind of get this transaction and we're pleased with the way it turned out.
Yes. Congratulations on that. Just a last question for me. I know you're out of the quarterly guidance business, but given the expectations of the higher restructuring, they won't be timed with gains. What does the Q1 dynamics look like with regard to gains and restructuring?
So today, we think we're going to have about $700,000,000 of restructuring in the Q1. We'll have some very modest, very modest gains in the Q1. So we'll have naked restructuring in the quarter of between $600,000,000 $700,000,000 pre tax in the quarter. And you want me to do the full Q1? So here's what I'd say is, when you look at the profile for the year, when we talked about gas turbines and power systems, I mentioned the fact that a lot of our volume was in the second half of the year.
The first quarter in Power Business, we're going to be down significantly on gas turbines. Last year, we had the tail end of Algeria and we had some Egyptian shipments in the Q1. So even though we're going to be up on shipments year over year for the total year for Power Systems, the Q1 is going to be light on gas turbines year over year.
The next question is from Shannon O'Callaghan with UBS.
Hey, Shannon. Good morning.
Hey, Jeff, maybe a little more on the core margin expansion in the Power business, the 140 basis points. I mean, you talk about positive value gap and mix. What maybe a little more color there, what's really driving that?
Yes. A big part of it is the strength in their service businesses. PGS was very strong in the quarter. That was important. We also shipped pure gas turbines year over year in the quarter.
From a mix perspective, that certainly helped them expand margins in the quarter to 140 basis points. Their value gap was really strong.
I mean, just some context here, guys. Our organic growth for the total company in the Q4 of 2014 was up 9%. Organic growth for Power was up 20% or something in the Q4 last year. And that was a lot
of the
Algerian shipments that we had that were product shipments in 2014. So kind of to Jeff's point, we had, let's say, much more difficult comps from a revenue standpoint, but much easier comps from a margin standpoint when you compare Q4 of 2015 to Q4 of 2014.
Okay. Yes, that makes a lot of sense. And then just on corporate cost, I mean, got some benefit there in the quarter. I know it's an initiative you're working on. I mean, are we kind of at a reasonable run rate now or is there a lot more to go there in 2016?
No, we're going to be down in 2016. So we finished the year at $2,100,000,000 of corporate operating cost. We gave you a range of $2,000,000 to $2,200,000,000 We're running the place at the bottom of that range. And we're not close to the end of what we're doing around corporate.
The next question is from Nigel Coe with Morgan Stanley.
Nigel. Good morning, guys. We're getting a little delay here, so I'll keep this brief. So just on back on the restructuring, obviously, a huge number for this year, Jeff. Should we you've got $0.08 in next year, 2017, for Alstom restructuring.
Should we assume that the bulk of that $0.08 comes into this year?
I don't think it will be the bulk of it. We're going to try and move as much of the restructuring into 2016 as we can. All of that restructuring, you don't just write a check and then get the benefits. There's actually all kinds of execution around it. So we're going to try to execute as much of the restructuring list actions, if will, that were planned as the 2017 actions.
We're going to try to do as many of those in 2016 on top of what we already planned as possible.
Okay. That's helpful.
I would
say, Nigel, with this amount of restructuring this year, we're going to get some benefits yet this year. The bulk of them are going to come in 2017, but we'll still get some restructuring actual benefits in 2016 just based on the quality of the projects we've got.
Okay, that's helpful. And then just quickly on the you gave a little bit color on 1Q and obviously 4Q was noisy with some of the project delays and also some accounting. I'm just thinking on 1Q, do you still see the scope for some of the some backlog push out into the back half of the year? And to what extent do we still have some of these accounting issues on us in 1Q?
Well, we're going to continue we're not done purchase accounting, okay? So we've from an accounting perspective, we've owned the company for 2 months. So we've done a significant amount of work getting the initial purchase accounting done, but we're not complete yet. And that really I'm hopeful that we'll be done with all of that in the first half of this year. And I think in terms of how our volume lays out, I mean, we're a little more back end loaded this year maybe than we were last year, just the way the order book wants to play out.
But I would say to a certain extent, guys, things like just the change in PTC, probably pushed some wind turbines from 2015 to 2016. That's unforecastable, but it's generally a positive. So again, I think by and large, we feel pretty good about how our backlog lays out and the integrity of the backlog. Again, we're not though Pollyanna ship out the oil and gas market and kind of we need to be fast on our feet as it pertains to how that business rolls out the rest of the year.
Great. Thank you, Jeff. A couple of quick announcements before we wrap up. The replay of today's webcast will be available this afternoon on our investor website. We're going to host a Healthcare Investor Meeting in New York City on March 11.
And our Q1 2016 earnings webcast will be on April 22. Jeff?
Yes, Matt, thanks. Again, thanks. Again, guys, I think it was given the first time we closed Alstom, this was more complicated than we like. Again, that will get better as time goes on. So it took us a long time to work through it.
But I think if you stand back and look at 2016, we've got a lot of self help in place with restructuring, big backlog, share repurchase and we feel good about double digit earnings growth, about returning a lot of cash back to investors and about really continuing to drive our strategy into the future. So we feel great about the company and we look forward to having more conversations. Great, Matt. Thanks.
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