Biography | Yang Yuanqing — The Dual Announcement That Bought IBM's PC Division

The deal that made Lenovo a household name outside China was not signed in a garage.

On 7 December 2004 IBM and Lenovo issued a joint statement from Armonk, New York, and Beijing.

The official release is dated that day on both letterheads.

Chinese Academy of Sciences coverage and Beijing press conferences ran on 8 December, when Liu Chuanzhi and IBM vice-president John Joyce were photographed signing.

The consideration was about 1.25 billion dollars in cash and Lenovo shares, plus assumed liabilities that brought the package to about 1.75 billion.

IBM would take an 18.9 percent stake.

Combined 2003 PC revenue was put at about 12 billion dollars and 11.9 million units.

Yang, then chief executive, was named incoming chairman.

IBM's Stephen M. Ward Jr. would become chief executive of the combined PC business.

CFIUS opened a review.

The purchase closed on 1 May 2005.

IBM's own closing release that day named Yang chairman on the spot and moved Liu to a non-executive seat.

This pin is the Armonk side of the dual announcement: IBM's long-standing headquarters campus at 1 Orchard Road in Westchester County.

Mapped coordinates for the campus sit near 41.10838, -73.72051.

It is a corporate park already on the public map.

It is not anyone's house.

The Beijing counterpart sat with Legend's Zhongguancun offices.

The numbers above come from the companies' 7 December release and IBM's 1 May closing note, not from later anniversary rounding.

Photo: Yang Yuanqing in 2010. George Albrecht, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.