IBM dumps more low-end operations

Article Excerpt

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP. $176 (New York symbol IBM, Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 1.1 billion; Market cap: $193.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.0; Dividend yield: 2.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.ibm.com) is selling its low-end server operations to China’s Lenovo Group, the same company that acquired IBM’s personal computer division in 2005. IBM will hang on to its more profitable mainframe computer business. Because Lenovo is a Chinese company, the deal could run into trouble on national security grounds. But if regulators approve, IBM will receive $2 billion in cash and $300 million in Lenovo shares. The cash would help the company expand in areas with greater potential, including cloud computing and analytics services, which help businesses analyze large amounts of data and improve their efficiency. IBM is a buy. buy…