OTHER NEWS - May 1, 1996

IBM OKs $2.5 Billion More for Stock Buyback: International Business Machines Corp. said the buyback of its common shares will bring the total for the last two years to $10 billion. Shares of Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM dipped 87.5 cents to $107.75 on the New York Stock Exchange. The shares reached a 52-week high of $128.875 on Feb. 28. Less than two months before, the shares touched a 52-week low of $83.125. The board of directors previously authorized three buybacks of $2.5 billion each in 1995. Since the first was announced in January 1995, IBM has bought about $6.5 billion of its shares. IBM said it will buy the additional shares from time to time, depending on market conditions. At the current price, IBM could buy back about 22.8 million shares. As of March 31, it had 544.2 million shares outstanding.