Richard Thoman may not have done much to impress the industry or the personal computer aficionado with the changes he has wrought at the IBM Personal Computer Co, but he gets high marks from the bean-counters for cutting out the waste and ordering the company to stop making machines that could be sold only at a loss. And yesterday, he got his reward with a promotion to senior vice-president and chief financial officer at IBM Corp, in succession to Jerome York, who is off to be vice-chairman of Tracinda Corp, corporate adventurer Kirk Kerkorian’s investment vehicle, which hit the headlines earlier this year with an utterly unconvincing buy-out bid for Chrysler Corp that it later withdrew. The market greeted Thoman’s arrival in the IBM finance post coolly, marking the shares down $2 to $100.375. York was seen as an important person in the finance office in helping to turn IBM around, said Philip Orlando, a senior vice-president at First Capital Advisers. Arnie Owen, a managing director at SoundView Financial, said York was very well liked and (his planned departure) accounts for the weakness in the stock. Jerry York has done an outstanding job, and I wish him all the best in his new endeavour, IBM chairman Louis Gerstner said. I’m also very pleased that Rick Thoman, who has more than 20 years’ experience in corporate finance, will be our new chief financial officer. No successor had been named for Thoman as of last night.
