Updating Our Conservative-Growth Payer: IBM

Article Excerpt

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP. $150 (New York symbol IBM; Conservative Growth Dividend Payer Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 886.6 million; Market cap: $133.0 billion; Dividend yield: 4.3%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Above Average; www.ibm.com) raised its quarterly dividend by 3.2% with the June 2019 payment. Investors now receive $1.62 a share instead of $1.57. The new annual rate of $6.48 yields a high 4.3%. The company has paid dividends continuously since 1916 and has raised the annual rate each year for the past 24 years. On July 9, 2019, IBM completed its acquisition of Red Hat Inc. (New York symbol RHT). At $34 billion, it is the biggest acquisition in the company’s 108-year history. Red Hat is a leading developer of software for cloud-based computing systems. (Cloud systems let users access computer programs online and store files on a company’s remote servers.) Its programs use the open-source Linux operating system. That lets Red Hat adapt its software to work on a wide variety of…