Symantec Annouces A Split In The Company

Another day, another Silicon Valley giant does the splits. This time it’s the turn of Symantec Corp., which has just confirmed it’s planning to split itself into two distinct brands: one focused on security, and another focused on information management.

Symantec’s announcement is the latest in a spate of multi-billion dollar mega-corporation restructuring moves over the last week. First it was eBay Inc. saying it intends to spin off PayPal Inc., then Hewlett-Packard dissected itself into two halves – one for the enterprise and one for consumers. There’s been renewed speculation that EMC might do something similar with is VMware subsidiary in the not-too-distant future.

Symantec said it came to this decision after an “extensive business review.” That breakup will allow it to “maximize growth and shareholder values”.

The security side will focus on offering cybersecurity products like its Norton Antivirus software and authentication and encryption offerings. The new information management firm focus on services like archiving, backup and recovery, and e-discovery.

“It has become clear that winning in both security and information management requires distinct strategies, focused investments and go-to market innovation,” said Michael Brown, Symantec’s newly appointed president and CEO, in a statement.

News of the split was hardly a surprise, since Symantec has been struggling for some time. Its stock has performed poorly in recent years, trading between $15 and 25 per share for much of the previous five years according to Business Insider. There have been frequent calls from shareholders to split the company, most recently last April.

Symantec hasn’t yet said what the two new Symantecs will be called. All it would say is that the split should be completed by December 2015, and that Brown will remain  CEO and President, while Thomas Seifert will retain his role as CFO. John Gannon will assume the title of general manager at the new information management business and Don Rath will be CFO.

Shareholders reacted with indifference. The stock rose just two percent on the news before falling back to its pre-announcement price.