International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N): Digging into Pre-Announce: Important Incrementals from C-Suite Catchup

Research evidence excerpt

International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N): Digging into Pre-Announce: Important Incrementals from C-Suite Catchup

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14 Jul 2026 21:30:34 ET │ 15 pages

International Business Machines Corp

(IBM.N)

Digging into Pre-Announce: Important Incrementals from C-Suite

Catchup

CITI'S TAKE Buy

Price (14 Jul 26 16:00) US$217.07We spoke to CEO and CFO in detail post the negative pre-announce and

distill our main takes alongside broader impressions/implications, while Target price US$375.00

noting that granular details on guidance inputs will likely determine/cement Expected share price return 72.8%

valuation floor. SoTP (based on a ~10% haircut to Street CY27E FCF and EPS Expected dividend yield 3.1%estimates) suggests ~$190 or ~10-15% downside from here, and where a

10% straight haircut to CY27 Street FCF and EPS implies ~17x EV/FCF, ~18x Expected total return 75.9%

P/E relative to 3-year medians of 19x/20x, respectively. In what we garner is Market Cap US$204,021M

now a likely wider-dispersion for CY26/CY27 expectations, renewed and

emboldened “AI-disruptee/AI-loser” concerns, we anticipate shares to be

tethered.

Price Performance

High-level observations — the opening message ascribed the ~$700M total (RIC: IBM.N, BB: IBM US)

revenue miss to “10s of deals” having slipped in the very final days of the quarter,

with little to no evidence of negative buildup, pipeline regression signals. We broadly

felt the team better elucidated and/or assuaged key concerns around organic

software growth (flattish in Q vs. -ve perceptions), “flight risk” software revenue

(sized at ~2% of total software revs, more color on recent displacement headlines),

and, most importantly, allaying fears around mainframe defection/modernization

(workloads not churning, in fact stable to growing).