Symantec mystery inquiry has market imagining the worst

For the past few years, Symantec Corp. seemed to have been doing everything right. The world’s top maker of cybersecurity software started selling more to corporations — chasing growth and balancing out its consumer-centric business. It made acquisitions. Its shares were rising.

So Wall Street was blindsided when the company disclosed that it’s conducting an internal investigation that will delay the filing of its annual report and could potentially lead to a restatement of earnings. The news was tucked into the fiscal firstquarter results late Thursday, and when analysts started asking questions, they were shut down. That left it up to analysts to fill in the blanks. And they imagined the worst.

The shares tanked more than 30 percent Friday, taking about $6 billion in market value with them. At least 10 analysts lowered their ratings on the stock.

Symantec said the board’s audit committee is looking into “concerns raised by a former employee.” The board has retained outside counsel to advise it and alerted the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Mountain View, Calif.based company beat analysts’ earnings estimates in the fiscal fourth quarter, though its outlook for the current period was disappointing.

Symantec, which makes the Norton antivirus software, has struggled with a decreasing number of people buying that for PCs. The company has sought to offset those declines by targeting affluent consumers concerned about identity theft with the $2.3 billion acquisition of LifeLock in 2016.