Gross Point Blank: GE's Got a Paper Problem

Updated from 3:20 p.m. EST

When General Electric (GE Quote) filed its annual report earlier this month, it boasted that the section on financials contained "30% more content." But for all that, the guy who runs the world's biggest bond fund said Wednesday that GE's disclosure falls well short of the mark.

In a wide-ranging critique published on his firm's Web site, Bill Gross, who oversees $250 billion in assets for Pimco, said that he wouldn't hold GE's commercial paper "for the foreseeable future" and suggested he wouldn't be taking on big positions in the company's longer-term debt. Gross particularly took aim at GE's massive commercial-paper issuance, which he said isn't sufficiently backed by bank credit lines. But he also said GE management, including Jack Welch, has failed in recent years to provide investors with needed disclosure. ...