Shares of Symantec, the maker of Norton anti-virus software, climb to as much as 10 percent to $20.50 on Aug. 16 after activist investor Starboard acquires a 5.8 percent stake in the company. This is the highest trading price Symantec attains since Aug. 3 after losing 32 percent of its value earlier this year.
Starboard has always been known for its string of acquisitions in companies that were performing feebly market wise.
Indeed, Symantec is faced with several challenges in the past months. This week, the software company received a notice from Nasdaq because it failed to file its quarterly report on time. Earlier this month, Symantec announced that it is cutting 8 percent of its workforce in an attempt to salvage its margins. The company, which provides cybersecurity software, has also been conducting an internal accounting probe since May.
Starboard, the New York-based hedge fund has now become Symantec's fourth-largest shareholder. With this, the next step for the activist investor is to nominate trusted directors for five board seats within the cybersecurity firm. The hedge fund believed that its nominees will be integral in mending Symantec's problematic financial operations according to the Wall Street Journal.
The nominees reportedly included Dale Fuller who previously chaired AVG Technologies, Nora Denzel who was a former executive with Intuit, and three other people who are previous board members with Marvell Technology. These nominees will bring "a wealth of experience," Oppenheimer analyst Shaul Eyal told Reuters. As of press time, Symantec said the nominees are still under evaluation.
Starboard's acquisition of stakes in Symantec happened a day after the software company announced its successful identification of 74 alleged cybercriminals that hijack wire transfers from businesses and individuals. Symantec led the intelligence on almost 1.6 million phishing sites, helping FBI and other international law enforcement to make the necessary arrests. The coordinated efforts recovered nearly $14 million worth of fraudulent wire transfers.
Symantec has also been at the helm of an investigation that led to the discovery of alleged cyber espionage from a group identified as Leafminer, the company announced on Aug. 14. The group has reportedly been targeting government organizations and businesses across the Middle East since 2017. It had been targeting primary industries, including the financial sector and energy sector in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, and Afghanistan.
Also in June, Symantec was credited for the uncovering of a sophisticated hacking campaign aimed at satellites, telecommunication companies and defense contractors in the United States and South East Asia.
