Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the General Electric 4th Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. My name is Larissa and I will be your conference coordinator today. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the program over to your host for today's conference, Matt Kribbons, Vice President of Investor Communications.
Please proceed.
Great. Thank you. Good morning and welcome everyone. We are pleased to host today's Q4 webcast. Regarding the materials for this webcast, we issued the press release, presentation and GE supplemental earlier this morning on our 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. Please interpret them in that light. For today's webcast, we have our Chairman and CEO, Jeff Immel and our Senior Vice President and CFO, Jeff Bornstein. Now I'd like to turn it over to our Chairman and CEO, Jeff Immel.
Hey, thanks, Matt. Good morning, everybody. Look, we still see the global environment as generally positive with a lot of volatility. GE had a strong 4th quarter with some elements better than we indicated in December. Operating EPS was $0.56 up 6%, led by industrial EPS, which grew by 23%.
Orders grew by 3%, which was 5% organically and our backlog expanded to a new record. Industrial organic growth was up 9% and margins expanded by 50 basis points. Our initiatives continued to deliver results. Industrial CFOA was $7,200,000,000 up 64% reported in the quarter or 30% ex the 2013 NBCU taxes. Capital's quarter was consistent with our expectations.
The U. S. Continued to strengthen as did Asia. Some businesses are seeing more momentum like Aviation and Healthcare. Our oil and gas team executed well despite volatility.
Their underlying performance was revenue flat and earnings up 6%. And we believe that our diverse and integrated model worked for investors in the quarter as it will in 2015. We delivered on our key commitments for the year. Industrial segment profits grew by 10%, driven by 7% organic growth at 50 basis points of margin expansion. GE Capital reduced E and I by $17,000,000,000 and hit their earnings plan.
CFOA was in the middle of the range at $15,200,000,000 Free cash flow was $11,200,000,000 up 6% for the year. Our capital allocation choices were in line with expectations. On the M and A front, Alsom should be a financial and strategic driver, appliances is well priced and done at a good point in the cycle, and the Synchrony spend will result in a substantial reduction in GE shares. We're executing a valuable pivot at GE, one that improves our business mix while delivering EPS growth and expanding returns. Now for orders, total orders grew by 3%, which is pretty good in the environment.
As I said earlier, organically, this is 5% in total with 3% in equipment and 8% growth in services. Orders grew by 7% for the year. We had strength in services, which was up 6% in the quarter and 10% for the year and we grew backlog by $17,000,000,000 year over year. Power and Water had a solid quarter, but comps were impacted by the huge Algerian deal in 2013. Without that, orders were up 13% in the quarter.
And we now have 15H orders with another 30 technical selections. Oil and gas orders were down 4% organically consistent with our expectations. Turbomachinery actually saw orders grow by 16% in the quarter. Aviation orders grew by 15% and they end the year with a record backlog. Aviation commercial spares grew by 37% in the quarter.
Importantly, the U. S. Healthcare equipment orders grew by 17% demonstrating renewed strength in our biggest market. Our success with the Tier 4 locomotive continues. We took 13.55 orders in 2014 and are positioned for record shipments in 2015.
The U. S. Was strong with orders growing by 18% in the 4th quarter following a 25% growth in the 3rd quarter and growth markets were mixed. For instance, Middle East and North Africa was negative in the quarter due to the Algerian order I talked about earlier, but was up 20% for the year. And Asian growth market orders grew by 21%.
We closed 2014 with a backlog of $261,000,000,000 and in December we called out a 2015 organic growth range of 2% to 5% and we still feel good about this range. For execution, our team really executed well in the quarter with organic growth up 9% and margins up 50 basis points. For the year, Industrial segment profit was up 10% with 7% organic revenue growth and 50 basis points of margin enhancement. Our initiatives are driving growth ahead of our peers. Our product lineup is quite strong.
The H Turbine is winning in the market. Our aviation wins are huge with 79% LEAP share to date. The Tier 4 continues to win. Our healthcare products are gaining share in CT, MR and ultrasound. Aviation commercial spare shipments grew by 24% and Power Gen Services grew revenue by 14%.
As I said earlier, growth market revenues expanded by 7% in 2014 with 5 of 9 regions growing. Also to update on a few of our adjacencies, life sciences grew earnings by 15% for the year, water hit a 10% operating profit rate in the quarter with 26% earnings growth for the year, and we won the Boeing 777X onboard computing system. This is a huge win and positions GE as a Tier 1 avionics supplier. Margins continue to be a good story, up 50 basis points for the year. Simplification and services, again, are the big drivers.
We hit 14% of structural cost as a percentage of sales for the year with another $1,200,000,000 of cost out. And corporate costs, ex gains, restructuring and NBCU declined by more than $900,000,000 We're seeing the impact of analytics on service productivity. Service margins grew by 2 70 basis points in the quarter and we have momentum in every business and with an intensifying focus on gross margins and product cost, we're on track for another year of margin growth in 2015. Now on to cash. For the quarter, our industrial cash grew by 64% to $7,200,000,000 This is consistent with our expectations for the quarter the year.
We finished the year by shipping a tremendous amount of volume and our teams did a great job on working capital, which reduced by $2,000,000,000 in the 4th quarter. Free cash flow for the year was $11,200,000,000 up 6% and the GE Capital dividend was $3,000,000,000 below the $6,000,000,000 they delivered in 20 13. We ended the year with substantial liquidity and financial strength. GE Capital ended the year with Tier 1 common ratio of 12.7%, substantially above the regulatory guidelines. We returned about $11,000,000,000 to investors in dividends and buyback, and we remain on track for $12,000,000,000 to $15,000,000,000 of free cash flow and dispositions in 2015.
We will allocate our capital in line with the discussion we had in December. Our priority is to execute on awesome, fund organic growth and continue to grow the dividend. Remember that Synchrony at the current pricing should return $18,000,000,000 to $20,000,000,000 to investors in the share exchange. In any environment where we have an uncertain macro economy, it's important to talk about execution. In 2014, in our performance, you can see the tangible results of how we're running GE.
Our underlying business has significant operational momentum supported by the changes to how we're running GE day to day with more transparency and more accountability. This was an excellent execution quarter for the team. And now Jeff will give you the business details. Thanks, Jeff. I'll start with the 4th quarter summary.
We had revenues of $42,000,000,000 up 4% in the quarter. Industrial sales of $31,000,000,000 were up 8% and GE Capital revenues of $11,500,000,000 were up 4%. Operating earnings of $5,600,000,000 were higher by 4%. Operating earnings per share of $0.56 were up 6% with industrial EPS up 23% and GE Capital EPS down 17%. Continuing EPS of $0.52 includes the impact of non operating pension and net EPS includes the impact discontinued operations.
We had $0.01 impact in discontinued operations this quarter associated with WMC. This was driven by a reserve increase of $142,000,000 to reflect WMC's current assessment of its loan loss based on recent settlement activity and negotiations. WMC ended the quarter with $809,000,000 in reserves flat with Q4 of 20 13. As Jeff said, CFOA for the year was $15,200,000,000 We had industrial CFOA of 12,200,000,000 dollars and received $3,000,000,000 of dividends from GE Capital. In the quarter, industrial generated $7,200,000,000 of CFOA, up 64% on a reported basis and up 30% excluding the impact of MVCU taxes from last year.
The GE tax rate for the quarter was 13%, bringing the year to date rate to 17%. In the quarter, we benefited from the passage of the extenders bill and deductions from higher restructuring and impairments. The GE Capital tax rate was 5% for the quarter and 2% for the year, consistent with a low single digits estimate that we previously communicated. On the right side, you can see the segment results. Industrial segment revenues were up 6% reported and up 9% organically, reflecting about 2 points of headwind from foreign exchange and 1 point from acquisitions and dispositions.
Foreign exchange was approximately $600,000,000 drag on industrial segment revenue and about $180,000,000 impact on our profit in the quarter. Despite this headwind, Industrial segment operating profit was up 9%. GE Capital earnings were down 19%, primarily driven by lower gains and tax benefits associated with the Swiss and the Bay transactions from the Q4 of last year. I'll cover the dynamics of Aviso segments in a couple of pages. First, I'll start with the other items page for the quarter.
We had $0.04 of restructuring and other charges at corporate, but we're 0 point 0 $2 of that related to ongoing industrial restructuring and other items as we continue to take actions to improve the industrial cost structure. At $353,000,000 pretax, this was approximately $75,000,000 higher than the plan and reflects the acceleration of some restructuring opportunities from 2015. We also had a $217,000,000 pre tax charge for an impairment related to a strategic investment in the energy space. This investment has underperformed in the market, but we continue to expect there to be long term value in the asset. In November of 2013, I reviewed with investors our plan to invest $1,000,000,000 to $1,500,000,000 in restructuring to accelerate the repositioning of our industrial cost footprint and position us to grow earnings through the pivot in 2015 2016.
On the bottom of the page is the profile of those restructuring and other charges that we took in 2014 by quarter and the 1 set gain associated with the Wayne disposition. For the total year, net charges were $0.11 per share or $1,700,000,000 pre tax. Next, I'll give you an update on industrial cost dynamics. On SG and A, we've made a lot of progress. We ended the year at 14% SG and A to sales, which is down almost 2 points from 2013.
This was driven by a combination of cost out efforts in the Industrial segments and corporate. For the year, we took out $1,200,000,000 of structural costs in line with the $1,000,000,000 plus we've been communicating with you. On the bottom left, you can see Industrial segment gross margins excluding corporate. For the year, segment gross margins were down 80 basis points, which is driven entirely by negative mix as we grew equipment revenues faster than services, particularly in wind, Gen X
and Thermal.
As we discussed at the December outlook meeting, Dan Heintzelman, Jamie Miller and I are driving a focused initiative to improve industrial gross margins through an intense focus on product costs, similar to our programmatic approach around SG and A. We are targeting to improve gross margins by 50 basis points in 2015. On the right side, you can see the corporate operating costs. The bar graph excludes gains, restructuring and NBCU operations from 2013, so you can see our true operating expenses. We've taken significant actions on corporate costs with about $950,000,000 reduction for the year.
This includes functional headquarter cost improvements, lower global and growth spend, operating pension and retiree health cost improvements and non repeating charges in 2013, principally the EBX charge we took in the Q2 of 2013. The focus on reducing corporate costs will continue into 2015 and we expect corporate costs to be about $2,300,000 to $2,500,000 for the year. We'll continue to reduce corporate costs, but this will be partly offset by higher pension expenses as Jeff outlined during the outlook meeting in December. Now I'll go into the segments and start with Power
and Water.
Orders in the 4th quarter totaled $9,500,000,000 down 8%. Orders were higher by 13% excluding the Algerian mega deal in the Q4 of last year. Equipment orders were down 12% driven by thermal down 62% as a result of a difficult comparison to last year's 2 70% increase including Algeria. We had orders for 41 gas turbines in the quarter, flat with last year excluding the Algerian deal. In the Q4, we received an order for 2 H turbines bringing units in backlog to 15 Hs and we've been selected for another 30 units on projects and are bidding an additional 61 units as we speak.
Total gas turbine order count for the year finished in 105 units, representing 18 gigawatts of power. Partially offsetting thermals orders decline was distributed power, which was higher by 66% and renewables was up 47% in the quarter. Distributive power equipment growth was driven by turbines up over 100%, partly offset by a decline in engines. The turbine strength was attributed to a large win in Egypt consisting of 20 trailer mounted units, 14 LM6000s and some balance of plant. The 20 TMs and 6 of the 14 LMs converted to sales in the quarter.
For the year, DP recorded orders for 167 turbines versus 174 in 2013. Renewables equipment orders were up 47 percent reflecting orders for 12 51 turbines. The U. S. Was up 16% including 138 safe harbor units associated with the PTC extension.
And we saw significant growth in Latin America, the Middle East and in regions we took no orders in the Q4 of 2013 including China and India. Service orders were down 2%, also driven by no repeat of the Algerian deal. Excluding Algeria, service orders grew 9% on strong transactional upgrades and outages. AGPs in the quarter were 26 versus 25 last year, bringing the total year AGP count to 80. Power and water revenues of $9,400,000,000 in the quarter were up 22% with very strong equipment revenues up 37% and service revenues up 7%.
Equipment revenue was driven by strength in thermal up 64% with sales of 44 gas turbines versus 28 last year and renewables up 20% on 2 0 6 more wind turbines and DP up 33% in the quarter. Operating profit in the quarter totaled $2,100,000,000 up 13% versus Q4 of 20 13 and earnings were driven by higher volume and cost productivity, partially offset by negative value GAAP, principally price and unfavorable mix of higher equipment sales versus services. SG and A in the quarter was down 12% year over year and margins in the quarter were down 190 basis points. As you look into 2015, we expect to continue to grow services including upgrades and we anticipate a flat gas turbine market, but expect to gain share. We're planning for wind to deliver 3,000 to 3,200 units and distributed power will continue to be pressured as we look into 2015.
Next, oil and gas. Oil and gas orders at $4,900,000,000 were down 10% in the 4th quarter. Excluding the effects of FX and the Wayne disposition, orders were down 4%. Notwithstanding the volatility of oil prices in the 4th quarter, we believe the relative impact was modest with more impact expected in 2015. Equipment orders of $2,500,000,000 were down 15% reported, down 9% organically.
The subsea orders were down 38% with no repeat of large Q4 of last year orders with Petrobras and E and I. Downstream technology orders were down 46%, driven by a large shell order in the Q4 of last year in our distributed gas solutions business, partially offset by strong growth of 7% in a downstream products platform. Measurement and control equipment orders were up 6% organically as we continue to see improvement in end flow and process markets. Drilling and surface orders were down 2% with drilling down 72 percent as expected, partly offset by 7% growth in our surface business. Turbomachinery was up 60% on natural gas orders in North America, the Middle East and in Russia.
Service orders were down 4%, but up 1% organically. The TMS orders were down 10% on lower installations in the quarter, partly offset by 6% organic growth in M and C, Downstream Technology growth of 16% and Drilling and Surface higher by 11%. For the year, total orders were flat with backlog up 1%. Oil and Gas revenues in the quarter of $5,000,000,000 were down 6% reported and flat organically driven by 3 points of FX and 3 points of disposition impact. Equipment revenues were down 5% with Subsea down 10%, but flat excluding exchange.
M and C was higher by 3% organically and downstream technology and drilling and surface were up 10% and 11% respectively. Service revenues were down 6% primarily driven by TMS down 11% and M and C down 5%, but M and C was up 12% organically. Operating profit in the quarter was higher by 1% versus the Q4 of last year and up 6% organically, driven by strong value gap and cost productivity offset by the effects of foreign exchange. Margins expanded 110 basis points in the quarter and 100 basis points for the year. As we outlined in December outlook meeting, 2015 will be a challenging year for our oil and gas business.
Lorenzo and the team are focused on executing on the cost out actions to offset volatility and deliver on their commitments. Next up is aviation. Aviation demand continues to be strong with revenue passenger kilometers November year to date up 6.1% on international routes and up 5.3% on domestic routes. Freight growth was 4.4% November year to date. Orders for aviation were strong, up 15% in the quarter.
Equipment orders of $4,400,000,000 were higher by 8% and service orders grew 25%. Equipment orders were principally driven by commercial engines. Gen X orders of $1,200,000,000 were up 23% on large orders from American and Air France. G90 orders were up 2.5 times to $900,000,000 in the quarter and LEAP and CFM recorded $1,200,000,000 of orders. Our total win rate for the LEAP since launch is now at 79% on narrow body aircraft.
Military equipment orders were down 59% driven by the slow military environment. Service orders up 25% were driven by strong commercial spares orders at $35,600,000 a day up 37% and stronger military spares. Orders for total year 2014 grew 8% and backlog grew 7% for the year to $134,000,000,000 Revenues in the 4th quarter were higher by 4% to $6,400,000,000 driven by commercial equipment revenues up 8%, services up 3% and military equipment down 3 percent. Commercial spares were strong up 24%. We shipped 77 Genex units in the quarter and 287 for the year.
Leverage and operating profit was strong with 12% growth from volume and positive value gap, partly offset by mix and higher R and D. Op margins improved 140 basis points in the quarter. Overall, the Aviation team had a strong quarter year and we expect strong performance to continue into 2015. Next is Healthcare. Healthcare had a better quarter than the headline results would suggest.
Orders were up 1% in the quarter, but up 4% excluding foreign exchange. And the U. S. Was quite strong, up 9%. Latin America and China were both up 2%, offset by Europe, down 1%, but up 5% organically.
Japan was down 23%, driven by the consumption tax and reimbursement reform and the Middle East was down 26%, mostly driven by Saudi. Healthcare system orders were down 3%, but up 2% organically, driven by U. S. Imaging and ultrasound equipment orders, which were up 12% in the quarter. We saw growth across most modalities with particular strength in CT, up 22% from our new Revolution CT introduction and ultrasound up 15% from a new VoluSawn product in the women's health diagnostic space.
This was offset by softer orders in Japan, Russia and the Middle East. China orders were up 2%, reflecting delays in government tenders we've seen over the last several quarters. Life science orders up 13% driven by bioprocess up 60% on very strong demand in the U. S. And Europe offset partially by core imaging down 7%.
Revenues of $5,100,000,000 were flat, but higher by 3% ex foreign exchange. And HTS revenues were down 3%, but up 2% organically and life science revenues were up 9% and up 6% organically. Operating profit was down 4%, but was up 1% organically. The strong cost execution including 5% lower SG and A was more than offset by price and foreign exchange. Looking forward, we expect the U.
S. Market to continue to improve. Although final industry figures have yet to be published, we believe we are winning share in key modalities in the U. S. And China should grow modestly as we look into 2015.
The business will continue to rise structural and product cost out as we move forward. Next, transportation, which had a strong orders quarter up 62% with equipment orders up 107% and services higher by 19%. In 2014, transportation had its strongest orders year ever at $9,600,000,000 up 89%. Locomotive orders in the quarter were 284 units versus 70 last year driven by North America where we took orders for 235 additional Tier 4 compliant units. For the total year 2014, we received orders for 13.55 Tier 4 compliant locomotives.
Backlog for the year grew 43 percent to $21,000,000,000 with equipment higher by 148% and services higher by 22%. Carloads grew strongly in North America, up 4.4% in 2014, led by intermodal, up 5.4%. Commodities, including agriculture, were up 3.7% and petroleum was up 12.5% for the year. In the 4th quarter, petroleum volumes continued to grow, up 16% year over year. Revenues in the quarter were up 8%, driven by locomotives up 8%, services up 14%, partly offset by mining down by 31%.
For the total year, revenue was down 4%, largely driven by mining. Operating profit in the quarter was up 13% on higher locomotive volume, material deflation and cost productivity, partly offset by lower mining volume. The transportation team has executed well and has positioned the business to capitalize on the new Tier 4 requirements in 2015. Next, Energy Management, which earned more in the Q4 than it earned in the entirety of 2013. Orders in the quarter were down 2% largely driven by softer marine orders and power conversion, which was down about 16%, partially offset by digital energy, up strongly at 17% and industrial solutions up 5%.
Backlog grew 9% to 5,000,000,000 dollars Revenues were down 2%, but up 2% organically. Power conversion revenues grew 6%, digital energy grew 1%, industrial solutions was down 6%. Operating profit of 113,000,000 dollars was higher by 2.5 times on strong value gap and cost execution. For the year, we earned $246,000,000 of operating profit, up 124%. Execution continues to improve and we expect substantial improvements again in 2015.
Appliances and Lighting revenue in the quarter was up 5%. Appliance revenues were up 8% driven by strong volume. Industry core units were up 8% with both retail and contract markets up 8% as well. Lighting revenues were down 1% on lower traditional product demand, which was down 15% and more than offset the strong LED lighting growth of 72% in the quarter. LED now makes up 27% of Lighting's revenues, up from 16% in the Q4 of last year.
Operating profit of $188,000,000 was up 32% in the quarter and margins expanded by 160 basis points. Next, I'll cover GE Capital. GE Capital's revenue of $11,500,000,000 was up 4%, primarily from lower marks and impairments. Net income of $1,900,000,000 was down 19%, principally driven by lower gains and tax benefits, including those related to last year's portfolio exits, including the Swiss and Bay Bank transactions, partially offset by lower credit cost marks and impairments. ENI excluding liquidity of 363,000,000,000 dollars was down $17,000,000,000 or 5 percent from last year and down $2,000,000,000 sequentially.
Non strategic ENI was down $12,000,000,000 to $132,000,000,000 or 8% versus last year. Net interest margin in the quarter at 5% was essentially flat. GE Capital's Tier 1 common ratio on a Basel I basis remains in a strong position and ended the year at 12.7%. This is up approximately 60 basis points from the 3rd quarter and 150 basis points year over year. Our liquidity levels are strong ending the quarter at $76,000,000,000 This includes $13,000,000,000 attributable to Synchrony.
Our commercial paper program remains stable at $25,000,000,000 and we had $10,000,000,000 of long term debt issuance for the year, excluding the activity related to Synchrony. In 2015, we've already issued $7,000,000,000 of long term debt as part of our total year plan of around $20,000,000,000 On the right side of the page, asset quality trends continue to be stable with significant improvements in our mortgage portfolio, driven primarily by the sale of a $500,000,000 non performing loan portfolio in our U. K. Home lending business, which generated a small gain during the quarter and the move of our Hungarian bank to help us out. We expect to complete the exit of the Hungary bank during the first half of twenty fifteen.
In terms of segment performance, commercial lending and leasing business ended the quarter with $172,000,000,000 of assets, down 1% to last year, largely driven by foreign exchange. Global on book volume was $12,000,000,000 down 10%. However, we continue to see strengthening in the U. S. Largely in equipment financing with volume up 4%.
New business returns in both lending and equipment were largely in line with the 1st 3 quarters of the year. Earnings of $549,000,000 were up 109% driven by lower marks and impairments. In 2014, the CLL business earned 2,300,000,000 dollars up 16%. The consumer segment ended the quarter with $136,000,000,000 of assets, up 3% from last year with earnings of $1,100,000,000 down 45%. Our share of Synchrony earnings was $451,000,000 down 3%, driven by minority interest and partially offset by core growth.
Consistent with last quarter as a now publicly traded company, CEO, Margaret Keane and the team will host their own investor call later this morning. Separation efforts remain on track. Excluding Synchrony, assets were down 17% as we continue to reduce our presence in non strategic portfolios. Earnings excluding Synchrony were $686,000,000 down 57% driven by the non repeat of gains and tax benefits recorded last year for the Swiss and Bay transactions, partially offset by $594,000,000 gain associated with the sale of the Nordic consumer platform. Just as a reminder, as a result of the accounting guidelines, roughly half that gain was recognized in prior quarters as tax benefits in GE Capital Corporate.
These benefits were reversed in the 4th quarter and the gain was taken in the consumer segment, resulting in a net gain in GE Capital of $300,000,000 in the 4th quarter. In 2014, the consumer segment earned $3,000,000,000 down 30%. In real estate assets of $34,000,000,000 were down 11% versus prior year. The equity book is down 35% from a year ago to 9,000,000,000 dollars Net income of $299,000,000 was up 134% driven by higher gains and portfolio earnings, partially offset by higher impairments. In the current quarter, we sold 3.50 properties from our real estate equity book with a book value of about 2 $100,000,000 for $328,000,000 in gain.
In 2014, the real estate business earned $1,000,000,000 down 42% on lower gains. In the verticals, GECAS earned $218,000,000 up 2 0 7 percent, driven by lower impairments, partially offset by lower gains and lower assets. Overall, the portfolio is in great shape and we finished the quarter with 0 delinquencies and 3 aircraft on the ground. New volume remained strong at $2,000,000,000 up 50% with attractive returns in line with the 1st 3 quarters of the year. For the year, GECAS earned $1,000,000,000 was up 17% from prior year.
The Milestone acquisition continues to progress and we expect to close during the Q1 of 2015 pending regulatory approvals. Energy Finance earned $111,000,000 down 5% in the quarter, in line with lower assets. EFS's volume was up 31% year over year at very attractive returns. In 2014, EFS business earned $401,000,000 down 2%. Overall, Keith and the team continue to execute the portfolio strategy and deliver solid operating results.
As we look forward to 2015, we expect GE Capital to generate about $0.60 on an EPS basis as Jeff discussed last month during the annual outlook meeting. We expect GE Capital to earn approximately $1,500,000,000 in the Q1 of the year. Lastly, I wanted to spend a minute and talk about the framework for 2015 and cover 4 points. On the left, you have our segment outlook as Jeff shared in December. Overall, there's no change to that framework.
On the right side, first, positively, we are seeing strength in the U. S. Healthcare market. Orders were strong, up 9% and equipment orders were up 17% with particular strength in imaging and ultrasound. Orders have been on a positive trend in the U.
S. Since the Q1 of 2014 and after the final Q4 results, we are more encouraged that this trend will continue into 2015. 2nd is aviation, which we feel is stronger. Spares orders grew 25% in 2014 and we are targeting high single digit growth in 2015. Revenue passenger kilometers and freight miles continue to be strong and low Jet A should be a meaningful positive for our customers in the space.
When you think about currency, we plan 2015 assuming a stronger dollar, but we've seen some continued strengthening since the December meeting. Assuming the euro at today's rates for the entire year, foreign exchange would have a modest impact about a penny a share, so very manageable in the context of the total company. In December, we also outlined our expectations for oil and gas with a backdrop of oil at $60 to $65 a barrel. Since then prices have fallen further. When we planned the year, we relied on multiple scenarios, including a further fall in oil prices.
Lorenzo and the team are laser focused on executing against their backlog and their costs. The team is reducing employment, executing restructuring and simplification projects to materially reduce their cost structure, all predicated on a tougher scenario. Additionally, across the company, we expect to realize some incremental benefits in direct material and other logistical and variable costs as a result of lower fuel costs. Oil and Gas represented about 15% of our Industrial segment earnings in 2014. We believe that within the context of the company portfolio, the potentially tougher oil and gas scenario is manageable and consistent within our framework.
Of between of between $1.10 $1.20 behind solid organic growth and margin expansion. Corporate costs will be substantially lower. Remember, we funded $0.11 of uncovered restructuring in 2014. In 2015, we will offset restructuring with gains. In addition, we should have the impact from 6 months of Alstom.
Capital results were on track with Synchrony timing the main variable. Free cash flow and dispositions are on track for the $12,000,000,000 to $15,000,000,000 we spoke about in the year. And again, cash return to investors depends on Synchrony timing, but it would be substantial if we do the split this year. So closing the year and since the outlook meeting, the GE world remains balanced. There are always puts and takes in the global economy.
For instance, the U. S. Is quite strong, which has a positive impact in businesses like Healthcare and Aviation and the price of oil has declined even further since December. Our job is to manage the company through volatility. And while we see the potential for risk to oil and gas based on current oil prices, we're aggressively working offsets through cost actions and positive opportunities elsewhere in GE.
We're also seeing stronger momentum at several other businesses. In total, this demonstrates the strength of our portfolio approach. Looking back in 2014, out of 8 industrial businesses, 3 beat their plan, 3 met their plan, and 2 missed their plan. But together, we did what we set out to do, growing core earnings by 10%. In addition, let me give you more insight to the plan I gave you in December.
We have an internal plan that is above the midpoint of the range I gave you. The business results that deliver that plan are embedded in our team's new incentive compensation for the year. In other words, our leaders achieve their IC when we hit an EPS that is above the midpoint of this range. Now I want you to have transparency on how we think about the world and manage our team. Our targets encompass a thoughtful approach to the environment and a broad range of macro dynamics.
So let me reiterate, we feel comfortable with our framework. 2015 is an important year for the company and we plan to deliver for you. And now, Matt, back to you and let's take some questions.
All right. Thanks, Jeff. We will take your questions now.
Our first question comes from Scott Davis with Barclays.
Hi. Good morning, guys.
Hey, Scott. Thanks for the color. This is a better presentation than we've seen in a while. So thanks for that. I know this is going to be really tough to answer, but it's going to be really important for us to try to ring fence the oil and gas profit downside.
Is there some sort of scenario analysis you could share with us or at least a sensitivity that if we are off 35% on upstream that what kind of profit drop you'll see on that?
Listen, Scott, this is Jeff. Scott, I mean the way we've thought about it, particularly when we went through it in December with you is we evaluated multiple scenarios, including a general expectation at that point that we'd be down 0% to 5%, but we evaluated scenarios that were down beyond that on lower oil prices. And when we talked about the range of $1.70 $1.80 in total, dollars 1.10 $1.20 industrially, we included in that our view of what those downside scenarios are. So I think you got to step back and look at it. Oil and Gas is 15% of our segment earnings in Industrial.
Being down beyond 5%, I think is manageable within the context of the industrial portfolio. And I think importantly, Lorenzo and the team are like laser focused on driving the cost and the productivity in their business. And the programs they launched were the programs needed to support a lower downside scenario than what we even talked about in December. So I think we feel reasonably comfortable as comfortable as you can be that within the context of what we've shared with you that we can manage this inside the portfolio our industrial portfolio. I think Scott, I would add to what Jeff said just to say, I think anytime in our world we have multiple hedges.
We have the hedge inside the oil and gas business driven by the cost action they're taking. We have other upside of what lower oil prices mean inside the company. And then there's businesses inside the company that are doing better as we close the year. And so I really I think we've envisioned different scenarios for oil and gas and we still feel quite comfortable on the way we talk the way we described the company in December.
Okay. Fair enough. Yes, there wasn't anything additional I don't think that was said on the call on Alstom. And there was a bit of a price adjustment we saw in the quarter. I think it was something like $700,000,000 or something.
Can you give us a sense and I know you're probably 5 minutes or 5 months away from close here, but can you give us at least some sense of your confidence in the asset and given the new world that the offsets, I mean, you've got a better euro environment for Alstom. But on the other hand, you've got some North Sea oil headwinds. So can you give just a better sense of your confidence of the puts and takes of that transaction and maybe a little color around the $700,000,000 adjustment?
Yes. Why don't I start with the adjustment and then Jeff can give you some color on the company. So effectively what we there were several points within the contract that we're hoping to negotiate post signing. We made a couple of adjustments. It's about €250 more that we will pay at closing.
Part of that was a payment we're making at our request. We wanted to the legal entities we want to restructure and buy into, we wanted to change a bit for our benefit long term in terms of taxes and otherwise. And so part of that €250,000,000,000 was a payment to ask them to close differently from a legal entity perspective than what contemplated. The second was, we originally agreed to about a 5 year use of the Alstom brand. We extended that in this agreement to 25 years.
That was about $85,000,000 associated with that. And there were some other with that. And there were some other very small items. I think you'll hear Alstom talk about €400,000,000 They're counting about $100,000,000 of interest that they contemplated owing us on cash that they used over the course of the year. We never modeled that.
We never counted that. So we see it as about a $250,000,000 adjustment to the purchase price, but we get a lot of long term value as a result of that legal entity restructuring. So I would say, Scott, always puts and takes. Their grid business is reasonably strong. I'd say the renewables business is consistent with and also reasonably strong.
I'd say the power business is in a flat market, kind of the same market we see. Clearly, the euro devaluation helps the purchase price. And other than that, the puts and takes are pretty consistent with how we kind of underwrote the business going in. So their year end is in March and we don't expect we don't really have a change in closing date. We still expect we still for the purpose of the plan planned on July 1 for everything more or less.
Okay, great. Thanks for the detail guys. Great.
Thanks, Scott. Great.
Thank you. The next question comes
So to Jeff, you talked about a pretty limited impact from the dollar on your plan. But I'm just wondering maybe if you could just address how the strong dollar and the big oil price could impact the broader emerging market demand for infrastructure? And I wonder are you seeing any backlog or project deferrals as a result of that?
Well, I'd say there's multiple Jeffs here, Nigel, so you never know quite. Yes. I
don't mind who.
Well, we'll both answer everything. How's that?
Sounds good.
Good, Jeff. So I'll start. There's multiple dimensions to this obviously. My comment was at about $1.15 and $1.16 we've opened up softer than that this morning. It's about $0.01 a share.
I mean we do hedge. We're not 100 percent hedged. We hedge all our transactional exposure to the extent we can. We do we are subject to some translation. And we do very short term hedging around earnings in a quarter.
So there'll be some volatility associated with currency. But I think my point was that in the context of the company, we're not at a point yet where we think it's something that's not manageable across our portfolio. We do have natural hedging. We have the ability in some of our businesses to move our manufacturing base globally, which allows us to take advantage of changes in currency. And in a couple of our businesses where that matters, we are actively looking at our build plan for the year to make sure we take as much advantage of that as possible.
I would say in the short run here, we've seen very little that I'm aware of very little impact on our order performance as a result of currency. That may play out more in 2015, but through Q4 of this year we've seen very little of that. And then I would say on the you had a multi both currency and oil price. I think if you took a tour around the world, look our biggest market is still the U. S.
The U. S. Had orders up 25% in the Q3 and 18% in the Q4. So I would always start by reminding people that actually the U. S.
Is the best we've seen since the financial crisis. And then what we call rising Asia Nigel, which is really China, India, ASEAN, stuff like that, those are actually quite positive for us right now from an order standpoint. And then the resource rich countries, I think, are going to be mixed depending on what your cost position is and things like that. So we still, I would say, on an underlying basis, see pretty good kind of underlying demand in the Middle East. But clearly, places that are marginal producers like Iraq or Venezuela, things like that, those are going to be places that we're not counting on much business in 2015.
So it's kind of a mixed bag. And then Europe for us is flattish. I'd say if you look at the organic and if the stimulus increases European demand, that's a good thing for us.
Okay. That's really helpful. And then just switching to the mix in 2015 and obviously tremendous margin expansion on services in 4Q. How does that 50 bps look between service and OE in 2015? And how does the mix shake out between the on the 2 to 5 between OE and service?
I think on the mix look, I think if you look at in the 2014, I would say product margins were flattish and service margins were up. And look we described to you guys we described to our investors in December kind of an extremely intense focus on gross margins and product cost. And so our expectation is that that delivers in 2015. So we're looking to get some OE margin enhancement in 2015 along with continued service enhancement. And then Jeff do you know on the revenue mix?
Well, I would just say on the revenue mix, the equipment service should be a little less impactful next year than it was in 2014. That's our plan. I think the gross margin focus that we have going, which is particularly centered on product service cost is driving at the OE market. Yes. Product and service cost.
Yes. Okay.
Thank you. The next question comes from Deane Dray with RBC Capital Markets.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Hey, a couple of questions. First for you, Jeff Immelt, a macro strategic question regarding balancing your framework priorities. And then I've got one for Jeff Borenstein about touring up on tax and restructuring benefits.
So to start on the macro question, you're pretty clear you're in a volatile environment, but I'd love to get an update on how you're balancing the framework priorities. You've got longer term big mix changes and could be near term disruptive to the organization. And then meanwhile you're on an EPS framework with a cadence of earnings, quarterly earnings. And I've always called it a bit like trying to change a car tire going down the highway at 55 miles an hour. So how are you balancing these big mix changes versus a earnings expectations for 2015?
The best way I can describe it Dean is since the I would say the since 2013 inside the company or even longer, we've been kind of talking about and executing around this kind of mix shift that we've described to investors. I think Jeff earlier in the presentation talked about the investments we've made in restructuring in 2014 to kind of set us up for 2015 beyond, which again everybody in the leadership team is on. So the way I would look at this Dean is on the industrial side, I think the teams their world is in front of them. Their incentives are in line. They know exactly what they need to do.
We've got Alstom coming in appliances going out and that is that team is laser like focused between Dave Joyce and Lorenzo and Stifel's and those guys know exactly what they need to do in this environment. And on a GE Capital side, look, we're just going to make it smaller if we can as time goes on. We're going to execute on Synchrony and that's what the capital team is doing. And so I think you got to look at it in terms of every team knows exactly what their piece of how we need to execute here. There is no absolutely no confusion on the industrial side.
In financial services, we're just going to look for opportunities to continue to make it smaller. We talk about 7,525 as a goal, but we really run the place without as an output function, not an input function, right? We run the place to execute well on our businesses and we think $75,000,000 is the output.
Got it. And then for Jeff Borenstein, maybe you can turn us up on the tax outlook for 2015 and restructuring benefits that should carry in and anything unique about the Q1 tax?
Sure. So on tax industrial tax, we think is going to be the core rate will be what it has been, which is kind of high teens. We will do the appliance transaction. That will be a high tax transaction, which will bump the rate up to low 20s for next year. And I think that's consistent with what we've communicated.
The trend will probably be higher in the early part of the year, lower in the later part of the year on industrial tax. On restructuring, same discussion. We're going to do restructuring next year. It's critical to delivering on everything we've talked about. We've assumed the gains, the appliance and signaling transaction will happen mid year.
We will do restructuring in the first half of the year before those gains manifest themselves. But we still believe that for the total year, our restructuring and gains and to some degree the impact of mortality are all going to offset. We're not going to be doing today anyway naked restructuring.
And what's the carry forward of restructuring benefits in 2015 from actions in
2014? About what we've gotten in our makeup in our cost role is about $500,000,000 We'll get an incremental benefit for a new restructuring we do in 2015. As you know, we'll get partially it depending on where we execute those projects. But the carry through from I would say both 2014 2013 2014 is above $500,000,000 for 2015.
Thank you. The next question comes from Stephen Winokur with Bernstein.
Thanks and good morning.
Hey, Steve.
Hey, could you just give us a better sense of the detail around the gains that happened within GE Capital in the quarter? Just sort of the major gains including as well as the real estate side, but sort of across the whole business? And did the Norges thing come through all that?
Yes. So I'll start with Norges. So we did close Norges. The impact in the quarter was just over $300,000,000 The headline impact in the segment reporting in retail was the full $600,000,000 and that's partly because we did the tax accounting earlier in the year that recognized the tax benefits for about half the gain. We reversed that in the Q4 and the full effect of the disposition took place in the Q4 in the retail segment.
So within the Q4 about $300,000,000 $600,000,000 for the year. In addition, I talked about we sold a non performing loan portfolio in our U. K. Home lending business for about $500,000,000 at a very small gain associated with it about $20,000,000 but a big deal for our U. K.
Portfolio. I talked about $2,100,000,000 of real estate sales in the quarter that led by Japan multifamily that we sold. That specifically was about 229,000,000 dollars I think total real estate gains for the quarter were closer to $330,000,000 And that made the bulk of what GE Capital gains were in the quarter.
Okay, great. And then just maybe pausing on the order price profile for the quarter and the trend line in some of these. So I know we've talked about oil and gas a little bit. It was down 20 basis points and Power and Water down 70 basis points. Are you seeing pressure in the existing backlog at all in terms of any kind of renegotiation activity happening?
And also currency, are you also feeling any pressure? We talked about currency a little bit, but are you feeling any pressure to use pricing to make up for any of the segments, whether it's Power, Healthcare or Lighting, where you might have broader international competition any of that coming through? And then healthcare I guess as part of that same thing which is I know this is the business model to be down every quarter and take costs down by more, but that can't be a good thing for too long. So maybe some thoughts on that too.
So Steve, here's what I would say. I would say most of the pricing impact that we see in the Q4 is more mix driven than anything else. For instance, in Power, you've got most of the heavy duty gas turbine action is in the H. That really is not in the base yet, but those are higher priced bigger units. You get a little bit more competitiveness on AROES, but not a lot to talk about.
Oil and gas, we really haven't seen it yet nor have we seen there's some initial letters and stuff like that on pricing, but no real action. I think that's all again, I don't think we've seen it in the Q4. We haven't seen it yet, but this is early days. So I think there's going to be there's certainly going to be chatter out there. So I don't really take all the stuff that's happened necessarily in the Q4 as what's going to happen throughout the rest of 2015.
15. I just think we have to be ready on all fronts. And I would say no conversation at all around currency and anything along that yet. And we'll see how that plays out. In terms of health care, look, I think you're right.
This has been the historical business model. But I also think, business model. But I also think kind of what we're doing with Steve with Jeff and Jamie and Dan Heintzelman is we're ripping apart the critical Xs and gross margins across each one of these businesses. And I think in healthcare, managing the pricing is going to be a key part of how we get enhanced gross margin improvement in that specific business.
Okay. Thanks, guys. I'll pass it on.
Great. Thanks, Steve. Thank you.
The next question comes from Steve Tusa from JPMorgan.
Hey, good morning.
Hey, Steve.
So just to make one thing clear, what were the impairments in the 4th quarter? So total gains of $650,000,000 in GE Capital, what were the impairments?
Yes. Hold on one sec. I'll give it for you. What's your next question Steve? And I'll run that down.
My next question would be another kind of detailed question. Lufkin specifically an artificial lift. I mean we've seen some varying reports on inventory destocking. I think TCP yesterday talked about their oil and gas business implied down like 50% to 60% in some of their kind of on a quarterly run rate basis. It shows some destocking.
Did you guys see destocking in your artificial lift business to Lufkin business?
Not yet, Steve. Look, when you look at like revenues in the quarter were up mid single digits in Lufkin. Orders were kind of down mid single digits, so not enough to read into. Again, a lot of this I think is in oil and gas is yet to play out, but I would say the Q4 was pretty much inside of our expectations for Lufkin.
Got you. And then just one last question just on cash. Jeff just philosophically around the dividend. You guys are kind of bumping up against kind of an 80% -ish type of payout ratio on the free cash when it comes to the dividend. I mean there's a pretty significant it's a big dividend relative to your free cash flow.
Is that dividend viewed at I mean is there a fine line here given the obviously the location of cash makes that a little bit complicated as far as moving things around and being able to pay that. Would you is there a fine line as a percentage of free cash flow that you don't mind going over industrial free cash flow and paying the dividend? I mean is it and as far as growth, do you view the dividend as it's a must grow over time? I'm just trying to get my hands around how much you defend that dividend.
You got $16,000,000,000 of cash on the balance sheet right now. We're going to do all of them this year. You're still sitting on top of substantial excess cash in GE Capital. Look, I view the dividend as being key. We have choice we have capital allocation choices we make.
We're going to continue to grow our free cash flow as time goes on. And we're comfortable with where we are right now. So I'd say, listen, we've been running it slightly above a 50% payout ratio. I think long term, we expect to be slightly less or too above 50% payout ratio. So as we work through the pivot through 2016, we made a conscious decision that we were going to run a little harder to our target payout ratio.
But the dividend as Jeff said is certainly a priority for us and very important to our retail base. And I would add Steve just one just something that I just want to make sure people don't forget and that is look the Synchrony transaction is effectively going to be a $20,000,000,000 buyback whenever we execute that. So that's a big another big capital allocation choice that's just going to be executed in a lump in different way, but that's quite meaningful to our investors as well.
Sure. And the impairments?
Yes. The impairments. So as you would expect impairments year over year were down substantially about $550,000,000 You recall in the Q4 of last year in CLL we took the momentum charge and we took a little we took a second charge on business aircraft. And then the big item in the Q4 of last year was the GECAS aircraft impairment. So year over year impairments were better by $550,000,000 pre tax.
In the quarter, we really didn't have a lot of big impairments. We had one big impairment on a real estate property domestically for just under $100,000,000 pre tax. And that was really about it of consequence.
Thank you. The next question comes from Jeff Sprague from Vertical Research.
Hi. Thank you, gentlemen. Good morning.
Hello, Jeff Sprague.
Hey. It's close enough. Just a couple of quick ones. I know we're running tight on time. Could you just reconcile the comment on Lufkin orders down mid single digit versus drilling orders down 72?
I know obviously, there's a little bit more, but that's a little bit of difference there, but that sounds like a fairly sizable disconnect.
Yes. Look, it's I'm just looking at 4th quarter orders, Jeff. Yes. So go ahead. We report Lufkin separately from drilling and surface.
Drilling and surface orders were up 4% in the quarter, so antithetical to what you would expect in this environment. And Lufkin was down 6% in the quarter. So I would say generally if you look at the because I went through the script, if you look at the orders for oil and gas in the quarter, they're not necessarily what you would expect in this environment. The things you would be think would be stronger, including down stream and the service related stuff. Turbomachinery.
Turbomachinery were good to slightly down and the things you would think would be the most impacted. The upstream stuff was a little stronger in the quarter year over year. So I think we're way too early. You're not yet seeing an impact on behavior with our customer and the current order rates. That's to come in 2015.
Okay. You did say drilling down 72, that right?
No. Yes. Drilling was down, surface was up. Yes. So drilling BOPs were definitely down substantially, but surface was up.
We reported as one group drilling and surface.
Okay. And I know the H price is not in the index, but can you give us some color on how that's pricing versus expectations?
Well, it's not in the index. I would say without giving away any real competitive information, I would say sequentially pricing is improving order to order.
Okay. And then just one really quick one on FX. Is the $0.01 headwind or so that you're talking about for 2015 now incremental to what you were thinking previously? And the reason I ask is you had $0.02 in Q?
Yes, Steve. Yes, Jeff. So what I was trying to say was when we did the framework December, if you look at that versus I did that math at $1.15 $1.16 The move from December to $1.15 to $1.16 for us meant that we were working with a $0.01 headwind that we would figure out. But again, I'd come back to there's other mitigants to a lot of this stuff as you look through the system. We're just trying to give you guys I was not changing guidance in any way.
We're trying to give you guys the pieces, because I think that's we want you to know how we think about it. But there's a lot of other things inside the company that we use to offset it just like we did in Q4.
Right. Thank you. The next question comes from Andrew Ohren from Bank of America.
Yes. Good morning. Andrew, good morning. Hey, just a question two questions. So the first part of the reason for creating oil and gas was to actually to deliver to national oil companies in an environment like this.
Could you share some of the conversations that you're having with these customers? And how are you guys positioning versus the competition? Difference? And from the outside, how do we know that it does make a difference? Well, look, I would say again, there's not one size fits all.
But I think the clearly the national oil companies look differently at this cycle than some of the integrated oil companies do. So I would just say in the case of a company like Saudi Aramco, they're going to continue to produce and there's a number of strategies that are associated with that, similarly to a company like Petronas and things like that. And then there's other places that are in more stress. So look, I would just echo back Andrew to a comment I made in December. We like the oil and gas business.
We like how we're positioned in it. And we think these cycles give us an opportunity to pick up market position similar to what we did in the aviation business and the power business and other businesses. But short of going through private conversations with customers, I can just say that we still think with a lot of the NOCs or a certain segment of the NOCs, there's still potentially going to be some good business to be done in 20 15. And just a follow-up, what's the latest strategic thinking on Energy Management and the progress that they're making? Look, I think we're in a pretty good strategic position.
This is a business where Alstom adds some competitive capability and scale. And our pathway has to be one that gets us to margins that are more competitive with the ABBs and the other players in this industry and that's and we can accept nothing less. So I think the way I look at it right now Andrew, we're in it to win. We expect margin accretion and earnings growth year after year in this business. And here's one where the ceiling is very high in terms of we should be able to do in
this business. Thank you. The next question is from Shannon O'Callaghan with UBS.
Good morning, guys.
Hey, Shannon.
Hey, maybe first for Jeff Borenstein. I mean, when you think about driving the swing from down 80 bps gross margin this year to up 50 bps, I mean, how do you see that sort of phasing through 2015 numerically? And also where are you and Dan and Jamie at in terms of what you're doing to drive that?
So right now Shannon we're doing very deep dives with each business. And basically I hate to get too tactical, but basically, we're starting with the outcome and building back the Project X from there. So on every element of product and service costs, direct material inflationdeflation, direct material usage, warranty, scrap, operating cost per hour of our different facilities, every labor, etcetera, building the project decks that support delivering at each of the segment levels their share of gross margin improvement at the segment level. And that's where we are today. Jamie in parallel with that is continuing to drive and support the businesses with the ERP, which is a big part of giving them visibility and driving our ability to consolidate etcetera.
So we are in the process right now of building very detailed action oriented plans that have every dollar of cost between sales and the gross margin line owned by somebody with a plan. So that's where we are today. I would say, owned by somebody with a plan. So that's where we are today. I would say this is going to accelerate throughout the year.
We're early in the process now and but I'm quite confident if we get at it the way we have programmatically around SG and A, I think we can make a big difference here. And I think there's a lot of opportunity, as Jeff said earlier, particularly around original equipment margins.
Okay. That's great. Really helpful. And then in terms of just the U. S.
Healthcare strength, I mean, can you give us a little more color there? I mean, what are you from customers? And where do you really think that market is and decision making is at this point?
So Shannon, the only two data points I can give you is just kind of what we saw, which was pretty good. We don't have the market data yet, so we don't know share and things like that. But we had good products and good activity and we got to believe that we gained a little bit of share. And then just I would say the other data point I could give you is conversational, which is as I see hospital CEOs when I travel the circuit, you just get a lot more positive in terms of their ability to know what the next few years are going to be like to do their planning, to do their growth plans and things like that. And that didn't exist, let's say, 24 months ago.
So we're guardedly optimistic, but it's too early to call it a trend, I would say.
Okay, great. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Our final question comes from Julian Mitchell with Credit Suisse.
Hi, thanks. Just on the Healthcare business, you talked about how the Q4 performance was something of a blip. But I guess the profit drivers down price and FX probably persist through the whole of this year. So maybe talk a little bit about why you're so confident that healthcare earnings are going to rebound?
Ken, I would say Julian on the comment you made, this is as Jeff went through his presentation and stuff, there's always going to be concern about FX and stuff like that in this business. Nonetheless, the U. S. Is just a big powerful driver of healthcare profitability mix, things like that. And so when I look at 2015 that in addition to momentum we've got in life sciences and stuff like that, I think that offsets all the other let's say headwinds we might see in terms of FX and otherwise.
I just Julian, I'd just add. I didn't if you took it that way, I apologize. I didn't mean to describe the healthcare performance as a blip. But what I meant to say was organically, the performance is better than headline when you think about the impacts of FX. So and I completely agree with Jeff.
I mean, when you the developed markets feel like they're getting stronger for health care. We're going to have challenges in some Russia and some of the emerging markets. But the bulk of our percentage wise, the U. S. Is still the biggest single market we have in healthcare and we feel much better about the strength there than we have in the past.
Thanks. And then just the gross margin up by 50 bps, what are you including for price or for value gap in there? Because I guess value gap was a decent tailwind in 2014. Do you think it's sort of flattish this year?
Yes. I think in our working construct for the year, we expect value gap to be roughly what it was this year. So we ended this year at about $300,000,000 net value gap and $300,000,000 value gap. And our expectation is that that will likely be what 2015 looks like.
There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Kribbons, do you have any additional remarks?
Yeah. Thank you. Before wrapping up, just a couple of quick announcements. The replay of today's webcast will be available this afternoon on our website. We'll be distributing our quarterly supplement for GE Capital later today.
On Friday, April 17, we'll hold our Q1 2015 earnings webcast.
Great. Matt, just I just want to reiterate as we close, the framework we've got for 2015 really has a ton of strength and thoughtfulness in it in terms of the scenarios that we're seeing globally. So I would just echo that and just reiterate we talked about the new compensation plan that the leaders have inside the company. That really has each and every business aligned to deliver right in a very effective way for our investors as we go forward, Matt. So I would just make those two points in closing.
Thank you. As always,
we'll be available later today for questions.
This concludes your conference call. Thank you for your participation today. You may now disconnect.