IBM Shares Reach All-Time High
While relatively new tech upstarts like Google and Apple have dominated the tech headlines in recent years, 100 year-old IBM has been quietly holding its own, as the company’s stock reached a new all-time high on Monday, surpassing $200 a share. Shares of the blue-chip company have surged nearly 24 percent in the past year, giving the company a current market value of just over $232 billion. IBM, whose predecessor company was founded in 1911, struggled through the 1980s but has posted mostly strong earnings since the 1990s began.
Sam Palmisano, who served as IBM’s CEO from 2002 through last December, ran a mostly successful campaign to improve the firm’s profitability and transparency, drawing investors back to the company. In 2007, the company set a goal of earning $10 to $11 a share by 2010, a goal that was surpassed as the company posted per share earnings of $11.52 for the year. In its latest goals, the company said it wants to produce per share earnings of $20 by 2015, a lofty goal but one that could easily be met given the company’s recent growth and innovation.
IBM recently revealed that it expects 30 percent of its sales to come from emerging markets in the next few years, and that it will spend approximately $20 billion on acquisitions by the year 2015. The company’s recent track record has even caught the attention of one of the world’s most well-known investors, billionaire Warren Buffett, who took a position in the company in November, marking his first-ever investment in a tech-related firm.
