IBM Canada Ltd is highest of all the country IBMs up the evolutionary tree, already being an almost pure software and services play, and it came a whole lot closer to that goal when it dumped off its manufacturing onto Onex Corp yesterday. Onex is to pay about $551m for IBM Canada’s Celestica Inc, which was established as a wholly-owned unit of IBM Canada in January 1994 (CI No 2,299). It employs about 1,000 people, and produces memory products, power supplies and provides contract manufacturing services for Canadian and international customers. Onex is an investment company with interests in airline catering and auto parts. Celestica will remain at its Toronto base.
