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By SERENA NG, ERIK HOLM and SPENCER E. ANTE
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett plowed $10.7 billion into the shares of International Business Machines Corp., making a massive bet on a technology services company after years of eschewing technology stocks.
Mr. Buffett on Monday said his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has taken a 5.4% stake in IBM. The holding is valued at $12 billion at current prices, already reflecting a 12% gain from what Berkshire paid. The acquisition made the Omaha, Neb., conglomerate IBM's second-biggest shareholder at Sept. 30, after investment firm State Street Global Advisors.
How did Warren Buffett keep his $10.7 billion investment in IBM from the public? WSJ's Shira Ovide stops by Mean Street to explain. Photo: Stephanie Sinclair/ VII for The Wall Street Journal
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Berkshire secretly had been accumulating the shares since March, twice receiving confidential treatment from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which otherwise mandates that big investors disclose their holdings quarterly. Berkshire made its purchases during a period when shares of the information-technology services provider hit new highs while the broader stock market convulsed.
IBM shares have surged 28% this year, outdoing a flat showing in the Standard & Poor's 500 broad-market index and making the company the fourth-biggest U.S. firm by market capitalization, after Exxon Mobil Corp., Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. IBM's shares closed Monday at $187.35, down three cents, on the New York Stock Exchange. Berkshire closed 1.3% lower at $113,921 a Class A share.
The investment represents the most Berkshire has ever paid for a minority stake in a publicly traded company. Berkshire has an ever-growing cash hoard that Mr. Buffett must deploy in stocks and businesses in order to meet his goal of increasing the value of his company faster than the S&P 500 index. The IBM investment, along with a purchase in the third quarter of shares in Intel Corp. by Berkshire investment manager Todd Combs, gives the conglomerate holdings in 11 of the 30 companies that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
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By investing in IBM, the 81-year-old chairman and chief executive of Berkshire appears to be departing from a long-held aversion to technology stocks. He previously professed to not understand technology companies even though his close friend and Berkshire board member Bill Gates is chairman of Microsoft. Mr. Buffett's investment track record has been built on investments in insurers, financial companies and industrial businesses, including household names like Coca-Cola Co. and American Express Co.
Mr. Buffett said he invested in IBM after reading its most recent annual report and was struck by IBM's entrenched position providing technology services to businesses. That is a characteristic he has long sought in investments, which he calls a "moat" against competition.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Monday, Mr. Buffett said IBM "fits all my principles…it's something we expect to own indefinitely." He said he has completed his purchases of IBM. The SEC issues about 60 confidentiality waivers per quarter to investors, allowing them to accumulate shares without disclosures that could drive up stock prices.
Mr. Buffett said the fact that IBM stock has been trading close to its all-time high didn't matter to him. "What matters is what the company does in the future," he said. Berkshire's investment in IBM was earlier reported by CNBC.
IBM declined to comment on Berkshire's holding.
IBM, founded a century ago, has evolved from what was largely a maker of personal computers into a global provider of software and technology services for big companies and governments. By 2015, IBM aims to double its per-share earnings from 2010, receive 30% of its total revenue from emerging markets and spend $20 billion on acquisitions.
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Shares of the Armonk, N.Y., company have ridden this year's tech wave, which has pushed up stocks of many tech and Internet companies and sparked fears among some market watchers of another tech bubble.
The shares are trading at nearly 15 times IBM's 2010 earnings and 12.7 times its projected 2012 earnings, based on analysts' forecasts. That valuation is similar to Oracle Corp. but higher than Microsoft's forward price-to-earnings multiple of 8.5 times.
Mr. Buffett said the idea of purchasing shares in Microsoft is "off limits" to him because of his friendship with Mr. Gates.
Even though Berkshire bought IBM shares during a period in which they often traded near their record high, Mr. Buffett has maintained he tries not to overpay for investments. Last Friday, in a meeting with about 200 business students from colleges around the country, he said that when he buys stocks, he looks for enduring competitive strengths "and something not too expensive."
Not everyone is as bullish on IBM shares as Mr. Buffett. ISI Group analyst Brian Marshall, who has a "neutral" rating on the stock, said shares are "priced for perfection" and likely won't see a significant boost until IBM starts growing revenue more quickly.
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Stephanie Sinclair/ VII for The Wall Street Journal
Warren Buffett
Mr. Buffett has long been familiar with IBM, having discussed the company's business with Mr. Gates in the early days of their friendship. Jeff Matthews, a private investor in Berkshire who has written a book about Mr. Buffett, said the billionaire's early view of tech stocks was shaped some 50 years ago when many technology firms were "untested or highly volatile companies that generally flamed out."
Mr. Matthews said Mr. Buffett "probably sees IBM as a company that is as hard to displace from the corporate world as Coke would be to displace from the consumer world."
On the change in how he viewed investing in IBM, Mr. Buffett said: "Sometimes business facts change and it's your job to attempt to understand them."
One change Mr. Buffett will have to keep a close eye on is IBM's management. In October, IBM announced that Virginia M. Rometty will succeed Sam Palmisano as chief executive on Jan. 1 after a nearly 10-year run at Big Blue.
Mr. Buffett said the management change didn't surprise him, as IBM has "retired people fairly young."
Mr. Palmisano has won credit for wrenching decisions, like dumping IBM's PC business in the middle of the last decade, and for using a string of acquisitions to boost the company's exposure to more profitable services and software businesses.
—Shara Tibken
contributed to this article.
Write to Erik Holm at erik.holm@dowjones.com and Shara Tibken at shara.tibken@dowjones.com
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204323904577037742077676990.html#ixzz1dk3LiRjr
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