International Business Machines Corp. is considering selling its weather operation, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. An auction for the segment, which includes forecasting service Weather.com and the Weather Co.’s business and cloud-focused operations, is in an early phase, the Journal said, citing people described as familiar with the matter, with private equity the most likely purchaser. However, the people told the Journal there was no guarantee a deal would actually materialize. Any sale would come as IBM tries to become a leaner company trained on AI and cloud infrastructure, the Journal noted. IBM did not immediately respond to a request for comment. IBM bought the properties in 2015, the Journal noted, adding that the Weather Channel wasn’t included but licensed out its forecasting analytics. Shares rose 0.2% after hours on Wednesday.
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