Starboard seeks five Symantec board seats
Activist investor has bought a 5.8 percent stake and wants to make some changes
Activist investor Starboard Value, a familiar corporate agitator to Silicon Valley companies, has another one in its sights: Symantec.
Starboard has bought a 5.8 percent stake in the antivirus software maker, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, sending Symantec shares up sharply in pre-market trading Friday. By midday, the shares were up less than 1 percent.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the hedge fund disclosed that it is seeking to nominate five people to the Mountain View company’s board of directors, including former Intuit executive Nora Denzel and a former board chairman of security firm AVG Technologies, Dale Fuller. It also wants to put Peter Feld, Starboard’s managing member, on the Symantec board.
Symantec said Thursday in a press release that it is talking with Starboard, and that the board is “evaluating the nominations put forth by Starboard, consistent with established policies.”
The Journal said Starboard thinks Symantec could make changes to improve its margins, and that its board nominees could help fix issues with financial reporting. Starboard has not returned a request for further comment.
Symantec’s shares have fallen nearly 34 percent since May, when it disclosed an internal accounting audit sparked by a whistleblower. The company did not provide much detail when it announced the investigation.
Yahoo and Marvell Technologies are among the companies at which Starboard has forced big changes. In 2016, it launched a proxy fight to replace Yahoo’s entire board, including CEO Marissa Mayer — and we know how that turned out. Yahoo is no more.
Also in 2016, Starboard helped bring about the ouster of Marvell Technology Group’s founders, power couple Sehat Sutardja, who was CEO, and Weili Dai, who was president, after accounting irregularities.