RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Shares in IBM are rallying Monday after Big Blue’s cloud strategy and plans to splint into two companies landed an endorsement from BofA Securities.

Analyst Mohan raised the IBM (NYSE: IBM) share target price to $175 from $153 and maintained a “buy” rating.

IBM shares climbed nearly 3% to a recent high of $145.53, or $3.65.

Shares are up from $121.68 to open 2021 as IBM proceeds with plans to spin off its services business while focusing on cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

“IBM is seeing the majority of clients adopting a hybrid cloud approach given regulations, latency concerns and data sovereignty,” Mohan swrote, according to StreetInsider. “Red Hat enables customers to deploy workloads seamlessly between private/public clouds and on-prem. Since acquiring [Raleigh-based] Red Hat in 2019, IBM has improved growth rates into the high teens sustainably.”

Mohan also said the spinoff move into a company called Kyndryl would simplify IBM’s structure.

IBM operates one of its largest campuses in RTP and owns Raleigh-based Red Hat.

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