IBM Executives Pocket Bonuses Despite Revenue Fall

IBM executives will receive annual performance bonuses in 2014, with CEO Ginni Rometty taking home a £2.39 million annual incentive payout.

The bonuses were revealed in a regulatory filing last Friday, with IBM CFO Martin Schroeter and a handful of other execs also in line for a bonus.

IBM’s net income fell 11 percent

In January, IBM recorded its eleventh consecutive revenue decline. Its revenue fell almost 12 percent from the same time last year to £15.9bn in Q4. Annual revenue declined from almost £71bn in 2011 to £61bn in 2014.

Net income was also down 11 percent to £3.6bn in the same quarter.

Virginia ‘Ginni’ Rometty became IBM’s chairwoman and CEO in January 2012, and is down for a base salary of $1.6 million in 2015, a rise from her $1.5 million salary for the previous three years.

Rometty will also be on track to pocket a £3.32 million incentive payout for 2015.

The news come at a time when IBM is rumoured to layoff 26 percent of its global workforce, shedding 111,000 staff.

The cuts are set to be part of a reorganisation plan called “Project Chrome”, according to Forbes. But last week, the company dismissed these allegations, calling the claims “ridiculous”.

“IBM does not comment on rumours, even ridiculous or baseless ones,” the company said in a statement.

“If anyone had checked information readily available from our public earnings statements, or had simply asked us, they would know that IBM has already announced the company has just taken a $600m (£398m) charge for workforce rebalancing. This equates to several thousand people, a small fraction of what’s been reported.”

IBM’s financial woes are attributed to its shift to cloud, but how much do YOU know about cloud computing? Take our quiz here!