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Do tech companies offer perks to shareholders?

I'm not talking about employees, I'm more curious about whether it'd be worth buying a few shares of tech companies to gain access to special shareholder discounts. Do companies do that sort of thing, or am I in the twilight zone?

Dave's Answer:

Actually, some tech companies do offer special deals to shareholders, though most seem to think that the privilege of owning stock is sufficient reward for being a stockholder.

One company that I recently noticed offers some deals for shareholders is IBM. In its most recent annual report, IBM has include a separate pamphlet that boldly asks What kind of company gives an extra 512MB memory to IBM shareholders?

It then details some pretty nice offers:

ThinkPad T60 for $1299 rather than the "web price" of $1879
ThinkPad Z60m for $799 rather than the web price of $849
ThinkPad X41 Tablet for $1999 rather than $2299
ThinkCentreA52 Tower for $599 rather than $649

There are also some peripherals at a terrific discount too.

If you're a shareholder (and I'm guessing they check, but, hey, it's easy to buy a share of IBM, right?) then you can call their store at 1-800-520-7304 and mention offer #536686 or pop over to the online shareholder store to see what kind of deals are available.

Note that these offers are only available until 4/25/06.

In terms of other tech companies? Well, I have stock in quite a few but this is the first time I've seen anything truly cool for shareholders and it kind of makes me wonder if IBM is a bit desperate to boost sales of its Lenovo line of computers.

Anyone else know of good shareholder perks?

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Categorized: Business and Management (Article 6456)
Tagged: ibm, lenovo, shareholder benefits
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