IBM (NYSE: IBM) is reportedly planning to sell up to $150 million worth of shares in Lenovo Group Limited.
That’s according to IFR, a Thomson Reuters publication.
According to reports, IBM is offering 182 million shares at about a 6.4 discount on Lenovo’s closing price Wednesday on the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Both IBM and Lenovo have significant presences in the Triangle – and the Triangle is really where IBM’s stake in the Chinese firm began.
In 2005, IBM sold its ThinkPad Business Group. And nine years later, it sold Lenovo its low-end server division. Both of those hardware divisions were headquartered at IBM’s Research Triangle Park campus.
The location of the Thinkpad assets helped Lenovo decide to locate what it calls a “dual headquarters” in Morrisville – a presence that, over the years, has expanded into an Enterprise headquarters in Research Triangle Park proper to house the server business.
Lenovo spokeswoman Milanka Muecke said Wednesday that it would not be appropriate for Lenovo to comment on investors’ plans for company shares.
“At Lenovo, we are confident in our business and strategy,” she said in an email. “We continue to drive growth for our shareholders in the long run with our competitive advantages and a balance of innovation and efficiency.”
IBM had not responded to a request for comment early Wednesday.
IBM is in the midst of a transformation of its own, as it pivots toward strategic focus areas such as artificial intelligence (Watson), analytics and cloud computing. And that restructuring has included workforce reductions as IBM focuses its investment toward those areas.
IBM is based in Armonk, New York, but has a significant presence in RTP. It hasn't released a headcount since 2008, but at the time it had 10,000 employees in RTP.