Mr. McCleery (Norman Fell): You aren’t one of those agitators, are you?
Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman): What?
Mr. McCleery: I hate ‘em. I won’t stand for it.
–dialog from“The Graduate”
Symantec (SYMC) CEO Enrique Salem has a message for holders who aren’t happy with the performance of the company’s stock: feel free to sell.
“The beauty of the stock market is that it is open from 9:30 to 4 every day and (investors) get to vote with their dollars,” Salem said in an interview with Reuters. The story notes that SYMC is down 3% in the 18 months Salem has been CEO, a period in which the Nasdaq Composite has climbed 54% and rival McAfee agreed to be acquired by Intel.
“The people who want to be in it for the long run can come along for what will be one of the best rides in tech,” he said. “Are you going to get people who are very short-term focused? Absolutely. They’re going to agitate and make noise.”
The Reuters piece notes that there has been speculation that the company might sell of a division to boost the stock price. But Salem downplayed the idea. “Symantec is unique,” he said. “We’ve got market leading backup and market-leading security products and that gives us the ability to do things that no-one else can.”
SYMC is up 16 cents, or 1%, to $15.86.
No comments:
Post a Comment