Cybersecurity company Symantec to sell Veritas business for $8 billion in cash

Shares of Symantec climbed 2.5 percent, or 58 cents, to $23.49 before markets opened Tuesday. It bought the company back in 2005 for an estimated $13.5 billion, The Wall Street Journal notes.

“Now they really get a new lease on life in terms of focusing on their core security DNA as the Veritas storage piece has been a massive black cloud on the Symantec story for a decade”, FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives said on Tuesday.

Symantec has struggled to shift its consumer-security business to subscriptions from one-time license sales.

Symantec’s net income fell to $117 million, or 17 cents per share, in the first quarter from $237 million, or 34 cents per share, a year earlier.

The sale is something Symantec has been working on for the better part of a year.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Symantec had been exploring strategic options for the business as an alternative to its plan to split into…

Thanks to the timing, the software giant also went against the grain of its normal habit and publishedpublished fiscal first quarter financial results before the opening bell on Tuesday morning. Remaining with Symantec are the company’s endpoint security and management products, data encryption, mobile, SSL, authentication, mail Web and data security, data loss prevention, hosted security and managed security services.

The company’s shares were trading at $23.48 before the bell. Along the way, Veritas had acquired the likes of OpenVision Technologies and the network and storage management group of Seagate Software.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast adjusted earnings of 43 cents a share on revenue of $1.53 billion. We remain committed to returning significant cash to shareholders, by announcing an increase to our share repurchase authorization to $2.6 billion. Now the company Insiders own 0.4% of Symantec Corporation Company shares.

The Carlyle Group has announced separately that Bill Coleman and Bill Krause will become CEO and Chairman, respectively, of Veritas upon closing of the transaction.

Under the terms of the long-rumored deal, Carlyle, along with Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and other undisclosed co-investors, will acquire Veritas for $8 billion in cash, according to statements from the companies.