IBM to continue being active dealmaker

By Anupreeta Das

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dealmaking is very much in the cards for IBM (IBM.N), Chief Financial Officer Mark Loughridge said on Tuesday, after the company recently lost an opportunity to buy Sun Microsystems Inc (JAVA.O) to Oracle Corp (ORCL.O).

"I go through a deal review every week," Loughridge said at the Reuters Global Technology Summit in New York.

"And every week we go through what our strategies are and how we're going to roll them out, and fundamentally move the corporation into new opportunities and value spaces."

With about $12 billion of cash on its books and plummeting values of potential target companies, International Business Machines Corp can afford to go on an acquisition spree.

Since 2000, IBM has spent $20 billion on more than 100 companies, said Loughridge, who was named senior vice president and CFO in 2004. On average, that works out to more than 12 deals a year.

Loughridge declined to say if IBM will continue or step up that pace this year, but said the economic climate provides a "fertile" hunting ground for acquisitions.

"Valuations are attractive," he said, adding that cash-rich companies have an advantage over other buyers because they do not need to take on debt to do deals.

Technology investors may be cheering that thinking.