Lenovo Group Limited, (SEHK: 0992) is the fourth largest personal computer manufacturer in the world, and the largest in the Asia-Pacific region as of 2006. "Lenovo" is a portmanteau of "Le-" (from Legend) and "novo", pseudo-Latin for "new."
Lenovo produces desktop, laptop, servers, handheld computers, imaging equipment, and mobile phone handsets. Lenovo also provides information technology integration and support services, and its QDI unit offers contract manufacturing. Lenovo also offers Internet access through its FM365.com portal.
Its executive headquarters are located in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, the home of IBM's former ThinkPad group, and in Beijing, China. It is incorporated in Hong Kong.
As of May 31, 2007, 39.6% of Lenovo is owned by public shareholders, 42.4% by Legend Holdings Limited, 7.9% by IBM and 10.1% by Texas Pacific Group, General Atlantic LLC and Newbridge Capital LLC. Because the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a Chinese government agency, owns 65% of Legend Holdings, effectively the Communist Chinese government owns about 27.5% of Lenovo and is the largest shareholder
Origins
The company was founded in 1984 by a group of eleven engineers, headed by Liu Chuanzhi, in Beijing. Originally known as Legend Group Ltd and New Technology Developer Incorporated, the listed holding company was incorporated in 1988 in Hong Kong. The company had become the biggest PC manufacturer of domestic and distributed third party products through its wholesale business.
The company underwent restructuring and separated into two entities. They were Lenovo and Digital China Holdings Limited. Lenovo became the personal computer manufacturer and Digital China took on the wholesale and distribution of IT products and services.
In 2005 Lenovo purchased IBM's PC Division which transformed it into a major international personal computer manufacturer. Lenovo paid $1.27 billion to IBM which consisted of $655 million in cash and $600 million in Lenovo stock. As a result of the acquisition, Lenovo gained the rights to the product lines as well as licensed trademarks such as ThinkVision, ThinkPad, ThinkVantage, ThinkCentre, Aptiva, and NetVista. As of May 1, 2005, IBM owned 19.9% of Lenovo.
