It's a problem that Jeffrey Immelt largely ignored as he tried to appease General Electric's most vocal shareholders.

But it might end up being one of the costliest for John Flannery, GE's newly anointed CEO, to fix.

At $31 billion, GE's pension shortfall is the biggest among S&P 500 companies and 50% greater than any other corporation's in the U.S. It's a deficit that has swelled in recent years as Immelt spent more than $45 billion on share buybacks to win over Wall Street and pacify activists like Nelson Peltz.

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