Symantec Corp. $21 – Nasdaq symbol SYMC

Article Excerpt

SYMANTEC CORP. $21 (Nasdaq symbol SYMC; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 612.3 million; Market cap: $12.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.5; Dividend yield: 1.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.symantec.com) recently completed the sale of its Veritas Technologies subsidiary to the Carlyle Group (Nasdaq symbol CG). This business makes products for data backup and recovery. Symantec received $6.6 billion in cash ($5.3 billion after taxes). It also retained a $400 million equity stake in Veritas. The company is using that cash to buy Blue Coat Inc. for $4.65 billion. That business makes products to protect clients from cyberattacks through their websites and networks. It’s also a leader in security for cloud computing, and serves over 15,000 businesses. Symantec expects to complete the purchase in September 2016. The combined company will get 62% of its sales from corporations, up from Symantec’s 50%. That’s a more profitable and stable business than selling anti-virus software to individual consumers. Symantec is a buy…