Symantec, best known for its Norton anti-virus software, yesterday reported a quarterly profit above market estimates, helped by cost controls as it focuses on life after the pending sale of its data management business.
The company also said it would buy back $500 million of shares, accelerating a plan to return $2 billion to shareholders from the $8 billion sale of its Veritas business.
The sale of Veritas to a consortium led by Carlyle Group is on track to close by the end of the year, Symantec said.
"The security business seems to be showing signs of stabilisation with some potential for growth, while now they are finally unloading the Veritas black cloud off of the Symantec story," FBR capital markets & co analyst Daniel Ives said.
Mountain View, California-based Symantec, which has fired two chief executives since 2012, has lagged the financial performance of many other software makers in the past year.
"I think the biggest opportunity is on enterprise security, that is where the core growth and biggest opportunity is," said Ives, who attributed the better-than-expected profit to tight controls on expenses.
Symantec, whose shares were up 1.6% in early morning trading, said in August that it would sell Veritas, raising cash to revive its core security business.
The sale could also help fund acquisitions.
Symantec forecast an adjusted profit of 22-25 cents per share and revenue of $890 million-$920 million for the current quarter, excluding Veritas.
Net income fell to $156 million, or 23 cents per share, in the second quarter ended 2 October, from $244 million, or 35 cents per share, a year earlier.
Revenue fell 7.4%to $1.5 billion.
Excluding items, the company earned 44 cents per share.
Analysts on average had expected a profit of 42 cents per share on revenue of $1.50 billion.
Up to Wednesday's close of $20.90, Symantec shares had fallen 18.5% this year.
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