Jeff Immelt is calling himself anything but “Despicable Me.”

The chief executive of General Electric, riding the wave of strong performance by the company’s finance, healthcare and industrial units — as well as its NBC Universal unit, which produced the hit movie and DVD, “Despicable Me” — saw shares soar 7.1 percent yesterday after reporting overall profits surge 52 percent, to $4.54 billion.

At the NBC Universal unit — which GE is about to sell a controlling stake in to Comcast — profits swelled 38 percent, to $850 million.

GE would still own 49 percent of NBC Universal, but will in the future report the asset only as a stock holding.

GE will also give up the unit’s revenue, which in the fourth quarter totaled $4.76 billion, up 12 percent from a year earlier.

The upbeat performance of NBC Universal was due to its high-margin cable channels including USA, Bravo and CNBC, as well as broadcast TV stations.

Profits at the cable channels were up 16 percent to $740 million in the quarter.

GE’s financial arm, GE Capital, made a comeback from its earlier writeoff troubles in the credit crisis.

GE Capital posted a profit of $1.1 billion for the quarter compared to $99 million a year earlier.

Loan volume jumped 30 percent, while bad loans and writeoffs in the fourth quarter skidded by $300 million from the preceding third quarter.

Sales of industrial equipment rose 11 percent to $1.88 billion. GE said future orders of all its products are up 20 percent for 2011.

GE’s total backlog for products stood at a record $175 billion on Dec. 31.

Revenue of all units rose 1 percent to $41.4 billion, beating Wall Street’s $40.3 billion forecast.

Separately, GE was the top spender in 2010 on lobbyists, for a total $39.9 million.

Lobbying goals included merging its NBC Universal unit with Comcast and securing funding to build an alternative jet engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter now powered by a Pratt & Whitney engine. tharp@nypost.com