IBM's stock price in 1999 was $140. Now it's 2019 and the price is still $140.
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To bad IBM did not buy YouTube or VM Ware. Red Hat does not make much money for amount of the purchase.
Shame on the Board of Directors
"think about the tens of billions of dollars in stock buybacks"
Also think about the acquisitions:
Informix (2001) $1.1B
PWC Consulting (2002) $3.5B
Rational Software (2003) $2.1B
Ascential Software (2005) $1.1B
FileNet (2006) $1.6B
ISS (2006) $1.3B
Cognos (2008) $5B
SPSS (2009) $1.2B
Sterling Commerce (2010) $1.4B
Netezza (2010) $1.7B
Kenexa (2012) $1.4B
SoftLayer (2013) $2B
Trusteer (2013) $1B
Merge Healthcare (2015) $1B
Cleversafe (2015) $1.3B
Truven (2016) $2.6B
That's only the ones that were at least $1B. There were DOZENS over $100M (Bluewolf, Fiberlink, Demandtec, Clarity, Unica, etc.)
And of course, the biggest one of all - Red Hat, at $34B, later this year.
All that money, and so little to show for it.
In 1999, IBM outstanding shares were around 1.3B, market cap $159B, revenues $83B. In 2019, IBM outstanding shares around 886M, market cap $124B, revenues on track to be below $79B. That has not taken inflation into consideration. Just think about the tens of billions of dollars in stock buybacks, and IBM being the dividend prince, and returning profits to its investors -- all wasted resources to financial engineer EPS, which is the only number that is 'improving'.
It is all smoke and mirror.
1999 was in the midst of the insane dotcom bubble run-up. Be curious to see the cash flow metrics between then and now, but not curious enough to look it up.