Posts Tagged ‘Share’

IBM stock shares reach all time high

Friday, October 8th, 2010

IBM stock shares hit an all-time high Thursday.

Shares closed at $138.72 on the New York Stock Exchange, up 88 cents from the previous day’s close.

A spokesman for Armonk-based IBM Corp. confirmed it was the highest that the shares had ever reached.

Such comparisons are adjusted to eliminate the effects of stock splits, in which a company typically splits one share into two.

During the day’s trading, shares rose as high as $138.88. Volume was 6.4 million shares, somewhat higher than average. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones industrial average, of which IBM is a component, dropped 19.07 points to close at 10,948.58.

The closing price gave Big Blue a market capitalization of nearly $175 billion.

The company went public in 1915. It will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2011.

Chief Executive Officer Samuel Palmisano has shifted IBM’s focus more to services and software, which offer high profit margins. Since he became CEO in 2002, IBM shares have risen from around $104, or a gain of about a third.

Aon To Buy Hewitt For $4.9 Billion To Expand Consulting Business

Monday, July 12th, 2010

Insurance broker Aon Corp. announced its acquisition of human-resources consulting and outsourcing company Hewitt Associates Inc. for $4.9 billion in cash and stock to expand its consulting business.

Aon will pay $50 per Hewitt share, representing a 41 percent premium to Hewitt’s closing stock price of $35.40 on Friday.

Aon plans to integrate Hewitt with its existing consulting and outsourcing operations and operate the segment under the newly created Aon Hewitt brand, the company said.

“This merger will give us a broader portfolio of innovative products and services focused on what we believe are two of the most important topics in the global economy today – risk and people,” Aon chief executive Greg Case said on Monday. (more…)