After the financial crisis, Immelt had altered GE’s portfolio through subtraction more than anything else, shedding businesses that had lost their appeal after the Welch years. But now GE became, in a series of high-dollar acquisitions, a player in the oil and gas equipment market virtually overnight. They bought an oil-field service equipment business based in Britain, manufacturers of pumps, wellheads, regulators, and piping in Texas, and a Norwegian firm whose sensors measured the pressure and flow of oil.
