[4] Gordon helped rebuild Kidder Peabody by focusing on specific niche markets including utility finance and municipal bonds.

Kidder Peabody was among the first Wall Street firms to start and dedicate an entire department to financial research and development.

In the Late 1970s, it hired Yale Professor John Geanakoplos to start an R&D department to research and analyse the connection between finance and mathematics.

GE executives had felt chagrin at putting up money to finance leveraged buyouts, only to have to pay large fees to other investment banks.

Wigton was the only executive handcuffed in his office as part of the trading scandal, an act that was later depicted in the movie Wall Street.

With Rudy Giuliani, then the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, threatening to indict the firm, Kidder was initially poised to fight the government.

In response, GE fired DeNunzio and two other senior executives, stopped trading for its own account, and agreed to a $25.3 million settlement with the SEC.

[7][8] Years later, in his autobiography, Jack: Straight from the Gut, Welch said that the aftermath of the insider trading scandal led him to conclude that buying Kidder had been a mistake.

Joseph Jett, a trader on the government bond desk, was found to have systematically exploited a flaw in Kidder's computer systems, generating large false profits.

[9] The SEC subsequently formalized his ban from the industry, and ultimately concluded that Jett's actions amounted to securities fraud.

Years later, Welch recalled that GE business leaders were so shaken by the huge loss that they offered to dip into the coffers of their own divisions to close the gap.

[8] On September 11, the former offices of Kidder Peabody (which were occupied by PaineWebber, as they had assumed the lease as part of the acquisition in 1994) were among many businesses impacted by the terrorist attacks.