IBM Corp is back in South Africa – but in its parlous financial state, it has to be cautious, and rather than simply buying out the representative company that was created out of its former South African business when pressure back home drove it out of the market, it is initially buying only a 24% stake. The company, Johannesburg-based Information Services Group Ltd, was formed by local IBM employees in 1987. IBM is paying the equivalent of $32.7m for the 24%, and has an option to take its stake to 51% and control of the company, which remains the sole supplier of all IBM products and services to South Africa and Namibia.
