General Electric (GE, $8.56) shares climb on CEO Larry Culp's $2 million stock purchase

Following whistleblower Harry Markopolos’ allegations that General Electric is “a bigger fraud than Enron”, GE CEO Larry Culp purchased $2 million worth of shares in the group.

Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission from late Thursday reveal that Culp bought 252,000 GE shares at $7.93 each yesterday, as the stock plummeted on a Wall Street Journal report that Harry Markopolos has pointed out what he considers fraudulent financial statements from GE.

Markopolos is an accounting expert who had in the past taken the lid off Bernie Madoff's investment fraud. According to Markopolos, GE’s insurance unit would need an $18.5 billion boost to its reserves. His report also mentions that GE’s accounting irregularities would amount to around $38 billion – which is around 40% of the company’s market cap.

However, responding to Markopolos’ allegations at GE, Culp said in a statement, “GE will always take any allegation of financial misconduct seriously. But this is market manipulation – pure and simple”. He further added, “Mr. Markopolos’s report contains false statements of fact and these claims could have been corrected if he had checked them with GE before publishing the report.”

Following reports of Culp’s purchase of GE shares, the stock climbed more than +5% Friday.