General Electric (GE) was the worst performer in the Dow, with selling all fall, and being the worst again this quarter. It was a dud in the S&P 500 as well, even though the stock saw a late-March surge on hopes that Warren Buffett may buy a stake in the company.

Yet while GE bulls are few and far between, there are still some, including Melius Research’s Scott Davis, and he’s encouraged by the speculation. 

Davis has a Buy rating on the shares, and believes that the rumors of Buffett’s involvement are true. He thinks Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B) could take an equity stake in return for taking on most the excess liabilities from its residual insurance business, a stake that could be “in the low-to-mid-teens billion dollar range,” he estimates, based on the $16.5 billion of long-term-care contracts on GE’s books.

This would put Berkshire Hathaway as a 10% to 15% owner–a “back-door equity raise for GE,” one that could be “instantly stabilizing” to its credit and provide “cash-flow breathing room.”