General Electric Co. Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt gets an “A” for fourth-quarter performance and any decision on the company’s continued support of a dividend and AAA rating is up to him, said his former boss, Jack Welch.

“He did a great job getting the company positioned for tough times,” Welch, 73, said in an interview yesterday on the company-owned CNBC television network. “He’s saying right now ‘I can deliver a dividend, and I can keep the AAA.’ Now we’ll have to see. This world is changing all the time. I’m not in the business of deciding what people should do.”

Moody’s Investors Service on Jan. 27 said it’s evaluating whether to lower the highest-available long-term debt rating for GE and GE Capital, a review that takes about 90 days. Immelt, who has repeatedly confirmed the company’s commitment to both the $1.24 annual dividend and rating this year, improved liquidity and delivered on the company’s fourth-quarter forecast, Welch said.

“I’ve given him an ‘A’ for the fourth quarter,” he said. “He had a component of finances that was large. Anything with financial services was unattractive. He got it, fixed the balance sheet up.”

Immelt, 52, told analysts in December that the company can squeeze enough profit from jet engines, power equipment and finance to justify the triple-A rating and still pay $13.4 billion in dividends to shareholders this year. Immelt took over as CEO in September 2001 from Welch, who headed GE for more than two decades.