IBM Board Approves 33 Percent Increase in Quarterly Cash Dividend

The IBM board of directors today declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.40 per common share, payable June 9, 2007 to stockholders of record May 10, 2007.

Today’s dividend declaration represents an increase of $0.10, or 33 percent more than the prior quarterly dividend of $0.30 per common share. In the last two years IBM has doubled its quarterly dividend.

This is the 12th year in a row that IBM has increased its quarterly cash dividend, representing a total increase of 540 percent since 1996.

With the payment of the June 9 dividend, IBM will have paid 366 consecutive quarterly dividends, starting in 1916.

The board also authorized $15 billion in additional funds for use in the company’s stock repurchase program. This amount is in addition to approximately $1.4 billion for stock repurchase remaining at the end of March from a prior authorization. With this new approval, IBM now has approximately $16.4 billion for its stock repurchase program. IBM may repurchase shares on the open market or in private transactions, including structured or accelerated transactions, depending on market conditions.

"These announcements underscore the strength of IBM's business model and our strategy. Over the past several years we have taken strategic actions to capture our industry's profitable growth opportunities and to globally integrate IBM," said Samuel J. Palmisano, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer. "This gives us significant financial flexibility to use our capital to drive growth through investments in acquisitions and capital expenditures, and to increase returns to shareholders through dividends and stock repurchase, as we are doing today."

IBM said it may complete a substantial portion of the repurchases during the next several months. The company said that, as a result of the increased share repurchase, 2007 earnings per share growth -- excluding any gain from the recently-announced sale of its printer business -- could be 12 to 14 percent, which is one to three points more than its previous estimates. At this time, IBM does not anticipate requesting board approval for additional funds for stock repurchases within the next 12 months.

Additional information about this share repurchase activity, including the associated financial leverage, is available on IBM’s investor web site at http://www.ibm.com/investor/viewpoint/ircorner/2007/07-04-24-1.phtml