International Business Machines Corp. said Tuesday its board raised the company’s quarterly cash dividend by 11 percent to 20 cents per share, and authorized $5 billion in additional funds for use in its stock repurchase program.
The company quarterly cash dividend, which represents an increase of 2 cents per share from the previous quarter, is payable June 10 to stockholders of record at May 10.
IBM said it will repurchase shares on the open market or in private transactions from time to time, depending on market conditions. The company currently has about 1.63 billion shares outstanding.
IBM spent $7.1 billion on share repurchases and $1.2 billion on dividends in 2004. In 2003, it bought back $4.3 billion in shares and paid $1.1 billion in dividends.