IBM Announces Dividend, Stock Buyback
(Updates with closing stock price)
Armonk, N.Y. (
--
IBM's
(IBM) - Get Free Report
board has announced a 55-cent-per-share quarterly dividend and authorized a $5 billion stock repurchase program.
The tech bellwether said that the buyback is in addition to roughly $4.2 million left over from an earlier repurchase. With roughly $9.2 million now available for share buyback, the company also expects to request additional stock repurchase at its April 2010 board meeting.
IBM, which has been shifting its focus onto high-margin areas such as
and
, will pay its quarterly dividend on Dec. 10.
Despite
compared to last year, the tech bellwether recently posted strong
, and has
consecutive quarterly dividends every year since 1916.
In a statement released Tuesday, IBM CEO
said that IBM has returned $73 billion to its shareholders since 2003, thanks to profitable growth and strong cash flow performance.
IBM is not the only company updating its dividend story. Earlier this month, for example, chipmaker
Texas Instruments
(TXN) - Get Free Report
raised
its quarterly cash dividend.
Shares of IBM, which competes with
Hewlett-Packard
(HPQ) - Get Free Report
,
Microsoft
(MSFT) - Get Free Report
and
Oracle
(ORCL) - Get Free Report
, ended the trading day up 54 cents, or 0.5%, at $120.65, despite a retreat in tech stocks that saw the Nasdaq slip 1.2%.
-- Reported by James Rogers in New York
