Symantec cuts 1,200 jobs as part of major business restructure

Symantec is cutting around a tenth of its staff – 1,200 jobs – and tidying up its security product line as it attempts to turn the company around after another disappointing year.

The strategy, as part of Symantec’s attempts to cut costs by $400 million, will see some company sites closed and the firm taking a charge of up to $280 million to do it.

The announcement came as Symantec posted its fourth quarter and annual results, after last month warning the market that sales and profits would be further down than expected, and that its CEO would be replaced.

Thomas Seifert, CFO at Symantec, said the firm was “improving organisational efficiency” to “remove layers of management, consolidate operations and rebalance some positions to lower cost regions”.

He confirmed that sales for the quarter fell to $873 million, below the top estimate of $915 million that was made before the sales warning. Current CEO Michael Brown will step down eventually, but remain in the job until a successor is named.

Symantec told analysts it intended putting more sales executives in the field to help push its “unified security” offering, which includes enterprise analytics. Enterprise sales fell for the year, partly as a result of organisations moving to a lower cost cloud licensing model. Partners have also been promised better rewards.

In January, Symnatec completed the sale of the company’s Veritas data storage division to Carlyle Group for $7.4 billion.

@AntonySavvas