The stock price would be about $40 or so, then split. This happened four times while I was employed there. Then came Obama butt kisser Immelt who wiped about half of that wealth away for good.
This is a useful reminder that Welch did do a number of things that strengthened GE. His Mantra of #1 or #2 or get out was smart for the legacy businesses. Stack and yank was not so smart because it was way too mechanistic and assumed managers were themselves competent to make the judgments. As I said earlier it also presumes the organization is able to identify talent and allocate that is at least as productive as that which is already in the organization. The point of diminishing returns is reached pretty quickly in many organizations.