ONLY RARELY are chief executives appointed with a mandate for dismemberment. Yet when Larry Culp assumed the top job at General Electric (GE) in October 2018, he was expected to sell parts of the 130-year-old conglomerate at a pace even faster than his empire-building predecessors had assembled them. In November 2021 he announced a radical finale: splitting the firm in three. GE’s health-care business became a separate company last year. On April 2nd its power division went the same way, leaving behind GE Aerospace, the firm’s engine-making operation.

Investors are reaping the rewards. After dithering during the first four years of Mr Culp’s tenure, GE’s shares have been on a jet-fuelled tear. The cumulative stockmarket value of GE’s three successor firms is $237bn. Although that is well below the firm’s peak of $594bn in 2000, it is more than double what Mr Culp inherited. Business-school students have spent decades dissecting the hubristic acquisitions that defined GE’s life. Now they must heed the lessons from its final act.