IBM's Rometty stages love-in with billionaire backer Buffett

IBM investor urges Big Blue boss to consider decisions as if she were spending her own, not investors' cash

IBM's chief executive Ginni Rometty has hailed advice given to her by IBM investor Warren Buffet to consider how she would act if her firm was privately owned before making big decisions.

In an interview with CNBC, the Big Blue boss (pictured) said multi-billionaire investor Buffett once advised her – and others – to consider how she would feel if she were parting with the firm's own cash, and not investors', before taking the plunge.

"He always puts something in a long-term perspective," she told CNBC in an on-screen interview. "We have learned from him, and I can think of many things, but one of the questions he asked – and he asks a lot of people [when] talking about investing in something – he always says 'if your company was private, would you make the same decision?'

"It's a great question, and your answer should be yes. If it was your own money, would you do the same thing? To look for that congruence of thinking is just one of the things I have picked up over these conversations."

Multi-billionaire investor Warren Buffet has a personal fortune of $72.7bn (£48bn), according to Forbes, and is the third-richest person in the world. His firm Berkshire Hathaway holds the largest stake (7.8 per cent) in IBM, according to Bloomberg data.

In a separate interview yesterday, also with CNBC, Buffett said he was feeling "pretty good" about IBM's future.

"IBM is a very trusted organisation and it is an innovative organisation and they're competing against a lot of other people who are innovating too. It is not a winner-takes-all game – search comes very close to being a winner-takes-all game, but cloud computing is not.

"Microsoft is going to prosper, Amazon is going to prosper, Oracle is going to prosper, but I think IBM is going to prosper too."