No medal for guessing Jeff Immelt's favourite Olympian. General Electric's next set of quarterly accounts should contain a line noting the Michael Phelps special dividend, so great has the 23-year-old's impact been on its fortunes at the Beijing Olympics.

The American swimmer has not only shattered seven world records on his way to an unprecedented eight gold medals in a single Games in Beijing's photogenic Water Cube, he has provided the troubled conglomerate with a timely antidote to the global credit crunch.

Ratings for NBC, the GE-owned television network and the holder of Olympic television rights in the United States, soared with each breathtaking performance by the Baltimore Bullet after a controversial decision to turn tradition on its head and stage the swimming finals in the morning so that the medal moments could fall sweetly into American prime time.

NBC recorded its highest Saturday night audience for 18 years when 40 million people tuned in to watch Phelps win his record eighth medal in the 4x100 metres medley relay.

Despite the 12-hour time difference between Beijing and New York, a US network scheduler's nightmare, NBC Universal will comfortably exceed its target of $1 billion (£538 million) in advertising revenues from the Games.

For a chief executive who, only four months ago, was staring down the barrel of an uncharacteristic profit warning and the biggest one-day fall in GE's shares since the 1987 stock market crash, the emergence of an American as the most highly decorated Olympian in history was manna from heaven - even if the bread had to be baked the night before.

“It doesn't hurt,” Mr Immelt said. “A bunch of things have happened in our favour: a great athlete, the right time zone and interest in China and the event itself. People are concerned about the economy and this is a nice relief. People like thinking about something other than the credit crunch.”

The Games are also a pleasant diversion for a man who took the GE helm from the esteemed Jack Welch in September 2001 and found that he had a tough act to follow.

GE, which has a financial services business, has pulled out of consumer lending in Japan but is still exposed to $30 billion of receivables through a credit card business that it is trying to offload. Mr Immelt is confident of finding a buyer by the end of the year, despite a sustained lack of interest in the market, and of spinning off its underperforming $13 billion consumer and industrial operations by early next year.

Until he completes those two deals,shareholders and analysts will continue to apply pressure. The surprise of a first-quarter profit warning from the last remaining founding member of the Dow Jones industrial average has eased, not least because second-quarter earnings met expectations, but it still lingers in the elephantine memory of institutional investors.

Mr Immelt, who has worked for GE for 26 years, is not expecting the US economy to recover quickly, which would suggest a certain urgency to get out of the consumer sector.

“I wouldn't say I'm overly pessimistic,” he said, “but housing prices are still going down. Until they stabilise, I don't think consumers are going to be the same engine of growth that they have been. They just don't feel as rich. Businesses have to be ready for that.”

So China, with economic growth of more than 10 per cent this year, is a happy conversation topic for Mr Immelt. “Business is booming here and the job for GE is to go where it's growing,” he said.

The second-biggest American company generates sales of about $5 billion a year in China, where it has 15,000 employees, and about the same amount again in sourcing. It is a small sum for a conglomerate whose revenues last year were $173 billion, but the country is important strategically and for future growth.

Mr Immelt said: “Most people see China only through Beijing and Shanghai, but now all these other cities, like Xinjiang and Chengdu, are developing. These are all Chicagos or Londons, and their infrastructure needs are huge.”

GE has supplied technology to all 37 competition venues at the Beijing Games and 400 other projects around the capital for sales of $700 million. They include some innovations for Chinese developers, such as a filtration and rainwater recycling system to provide drinking water at the Bird's Nest stadium and 120 wind turbines north of the city that supply energy to the Olympic Park.

After the International Olympic Committee trumpeted the Games as an instrument for improving China's poor environmental protection record - despite the haze that has covered Beijing - there may be opportunities for Western companies to advance the theory.

“Clean energy and clean water is a big priority for the Government,” Mr Immelt said. “I'm never presumptuous about cultural changes in China or anywhere else, but I think there is an awareness of the environment that has been growing inside China that I think the Olympics amplify. We see it in business in dialogue with steel customers or airlines. We want to capitalise on that.”

GE would have grown in China without the Olympics, he asserts, but the event gives the company some momentum by spreading the brand

to potential new customers. It could also give GE, which generates nearly 60 per cent of its revenues outside the United States, an edge over rivals, such as Siemens, in winning contracts. “Being an Olympic sponsor means we can show how we would replicate customer support and services across the country in other venues,” he said. “It's a big statement about the company.”

When the Olympics bandwagon rolls into Vancouver for the Winter Games in 2010 and into London in 2012, NBC will continue to provide television coverage to American audiences. By then, other stars will have come along, but Mr Immelt has a special regard for the amazing Phelps: “We're thinking about making him the youngest VP in GE.”

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