I've been wondering lately what could have been done to prevent Symantec from being in the position it is in now: being acquired and decimated by its future owner?
Was there anything to be done or were we doomed to end up like this due to outside forces, such as market conditions?
Executive mismanagement and VPs competing internally rather than doing what's best for the company left us vulnerable to activist investors. These executives and VPs rode the gravy train to the edge of the cliff and then jumped off to their next opportunity.
No This was not avoidable. but Almost symantec people are excellent and fidelity. The greatest risk is standing still. No matter what situation we should go ahead. Good luck, mates!
It depends. If 3-4 years ago, wrong choices were not made, I would say yes, it was avoidable
"revenue flat lined and the Exec's wanted ... BRCM swooped in to tear apart the wounded pray"
Please tell me that US high schools don't graduate people who think that 'execs' has an apostrophe in it and/or that prey is spelled with an 'a'. What job could they perform in a 21st century IT company?
No wonder Symantec got to this point. We've met the enemy and he is us."
Honestly this has been a long time coming. Yes this happens more when the execs get huge numbers of stock vs cash because its something that can easily multiply to be many times their cash salary, but that isnt the only reason.
We all know that Symantec has been mismanaged for some time. The truth is that hard decisions needed to be made to get back to being more profitable, and without that, we all got put in this position. It is Hill's and Starboard's fault that we are here? No. They simply took advantage of a situation that they could and are making a ton of money and laughing all the way to the bank.
TBH I find it to be unethical (to sell of the company and then buy massive amounts of stock, his contract is also complete BS) and completely devoid of all semblance of humanity, but that is a different discussion.
Same thing happened at CA, revenue flat lined and the Exec's wanted those payouts. So BRCM swooped in to tear apart the wounded pray which was CA, strip it to the bone and only keep the most essential personnel to run the business.
This is what happens when companies award their execs with stock as the most part of their compensation. Those execs won't make the hard choices to lean out the company to be a winner...because it will temporarily make the stock price go down and they will lose money out of their own pockets.
Also because the board has been taken over by investment firms that also want to preserve the stock price at all costs so they can feed off it....thus not making the hard choices that might cause it to go down for awhile.
For example, per SEC filing, Rick Hill will be getting 1.5 million salary plus 650,000 shares of stock RSUs awarded him with accelerated vestment. If the stock does well...almost guaranteed due to the offers as of late...he might be in line to get another 975,000 shares!!
Why would anyone in their right minds do anything to upset that gravy train....why would anyone make hard choices and cut out dying products when that would make that nice stock price go down and ruin their chances of that kind of payout?
So "Yes", this was inevitable due to our government allowing this kind of compensation. Symantec will not be the only U.S. company at which this happens. Other countries, not allowing this kind of compensation, will have companies that flourish while those in the U.S. will start to decay.
SYMC needed to make changes. These required substantial investments. Unfortunately, investors did not give senior management the financial headroom to make those investments. When this was coupled with the natural tendency of large legacy companies to resist change, SYMC finds itself where it it today.
Market conditions or pure greed without care for consequence