International Business Machines Corp. and Lenovo Group Ltd. plan to create a new U.S. personal-computer company that would own IBMis PC business, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
The new company would be majority owned by Lenovo, with IBM holding on to a minority stake small enough that its revenues and profit or loss would be excluded from operating results, the daily paper said. While the deal hasnit been finalized, Lenovo is expected to pay as much as US$2 billion for the majority share of IBMis PC business, say people involved in the talks.
A person familiar with the plan told The Journal Lenovo will move the new companyis headquarters to Raleigh, N.C., where the IBM PC unitis design-and-development activities are based. It is expected that 2,500 IBM employees would join the new company.
The discussions, which have been rumored for weeks and were first reported by the New York Times last Friday, could be completed as early as today, the paper reported.