PREVIEW-GE investors' hopes pinned on industrial businesses

* What: GE reports second-quarter results

* When: Friday, July 17

* Wall Street sees EPS of 24 cents versus 54 cents

* GE Capital, NBC Universal, consumer units likely drags

* Energy, maintenance possible bright spots

By Scott Malone

BOSTON, July 14 (Reuters) - General Electric Co (GE.N) investors will be watching for the largest U.S. conglomerate's results on Friday with one big question in mind -- how well are its industrial units weathering the recession?

The global downturn and credit crisis turned GE Capital from a money machine into an Achilles heel. NBC Universal and its appliance and unit have also been hard hit, leaving the energy infrastructure division -- which makes electricity producing turbines and equipment used in oil and gas production -- the brightest spot in GE's portfolio.

Wall Street expects second-quarter earnings to fall sharply and many investors look for new equipment orders to be weak. That will lead them to focus on how well GE's maintenance revenue, the money it makes from keeping its already-sold products up and running, and backlog of previous orders is holding up.

"Their businesses ought to be experiencing a flattish to down environment," said Peter Klein, senior portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management in Cleveland, which owns GE shares. "We want to see to what extent that's impacting not only current business but future business. What's the order book look like, the cancellation rate look like?"

GE shares have fallen about 59 percent over the past 12 months, more than double the 25 percent drop of the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI. They were up 1.2 percent Tuesday at $11.60 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Over the past year the Fairfield, Connecticut-based company has raised $15 billion in capital, cut its dividend and lost its coveted triple-A credit rating.

Analysts, on average, expect second-quarter per-share earnings to be 24 cents versus a comparable 54 cents from continuing operations a year ago, with revenue expected to fall 10 percent to $42 billion.

GE has stopped giving specific per-share profit forecasts, instead providing a "framework" of how it expects its individual units to perform.

"For everything outside of energy infrastructure, expectations are pretty low," said Matt Collins, capital goods analyst at Edward Jones, in St. Louis.

Low expectations have set the stage for several stock rallies over the past week, with shares of U.S. aluminum maker Alcoa Inc (AA.N), No. 3 U.S. railroad CSX Corp (CSX.N) and Dutch conglomerate Philips Electronics (PHG.AS) all surging after their reports were less bleak than investors had feared.

CASH IS KING

Investors have focused the lion's share of their fears this year on GE Capital, which has invested heavily in commercial real estate and is bracing for rising loss rates on its loan portfolio as a slumping economy makes it harder for borrowers to repay debts.

That has some analysts convinced that GE's cash flow will be an important gauge of how well it can weather the slump.

"When you look at first-quarter free cash flows for GE on the industrial side, revenues were down 1 percent and free cash flows were down almost 20 percent in the first quarter," said Charles Ortel, managing director at Newport Value Partners, a New York research firm. "We expect that kind of similar trend to continue in the second quarter, because if anything the second quarter was more difficult."

Ortel's firm, which has a $2 price target on GE, does not hold a long or short position in the stock.

Another investor worry is the risk that a proposal by the Obama administration to revamp the U.S. financial regulatory system could force the company to spin off GE Capital. GE officials said they would fight to keep the finance unit.

SERVICE A STABILIZER

The metric that could provide the most hope for investors is maintenance. Even during recessions, owners of big-ticket power plants, jet engines, railroad locomotives and other heavy equipment need to pay to keep their machinery running.

"The highly cyclical nature of several key end-markets such as energy and aviation is blunted by the more predictable nature of its service and spares business," wrote Deutsche Bank analyst Nigel Coe, in a note to clients. Coe, who has a $14 price target on GE, noted that maintenance accounts for 60 to 65 percent of the company's earnings.

Absent dramatic bad news, investors said they believe GE shares are unlikely return to their March level, when they briefly fell below $6 amid a broad market rout.

"I don't necessarily believe that we're headed toward retesting the panic lows that we had in the spring," said Fifth Third's Klein. "If the situation is much worse on the credit side than what they forecast, we could see investors react negatively. But I think the combination of what goes on there with a pretty subdued industrial side probably ought to at best keep the stock range-bound, in the $10 to $12 area." (Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)