Hewlett-Packard Split: This Time Is Different?

Investing

Published: October 6, 2014 9:20 am

Last Updated: April 27, 2020 10:54 pm

The rumors that hit the wires this past weekend have been confirmed Monday morning. Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) has announced that it will separate into two new publicly traded companies: Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and HP Inc. The transaction, which will be effected in a tax-free distribution of shares to stockholders, is expected to be completed by the end of 2015.

Exactly how this transaction changes anything except stock ticker symbols is a little difficult to see. The new Enterprise company will still be competing against SAP S.E. (NYSE: SAP), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) and Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) and the hardware business, at least the PC part of it, will be going against Lenovo and other Asian makers. HP is not winning big in either hardware or software now, and the split may simply accentuate the weaknesses of each half of the company. As a single company, HP is nearly unique; as two companies, it is one of two herds. How does that help?

HP will also increase its total number of firings by 5,000, to 55,000, according to The Wall Street Journal. HP has already fired 36,000 people under its restructuring plan. HP also reaffirmed its earnings per share guidance for the 2014 fiscal year in a range of $3.70 to $3.74, and it provided an estimate of earnings per share for 2015 of $3.83 to $4.03.

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Each of the new companies is expected to post annual revenues of around $50 billion once the separation is completed.

The Enterprise company will include infrastructure, software and services and will be headed by current HP CEO Meg Whitman, who will also be chairman of the board of HP Inc., the hardware company formed from HP’s personal systems and printing businesses. The new HP Inc.’s CEO will be Dion Weisler, who is currently executive vice-president of HP’s printing and personal systems businesses.

HP CEO Meg Whitman will be the president and CEO of the Enterprise company, as well as chairman of the board of HP Inc. The current lead independent director of HP’s board will become chairman of the board of the new Enterprise company.

What’s interesting here is that former HP CEO Leo Apotheker had decided on the same split before he was replaced in 2011 by Whitman, who then reversed Apotheker’s decision claiming that PCs and printers were essential to HP’s business relationships with its customers.

When Whitman combined the profitable printer business with the PC business in 2012, she paved the way for the split that was announced Monday. In the most recent quarter, the hardware businesses posted nearly 50% of the company’s total revenue, and operating profits were up 45% year-over-year for the quarter to $346 million in the PC business and up 18.4% to $1.03 billion in the printer business.

Shareholders obviously are happy. The stock was up about 7.5% Monday to $37.82 in premarket trading. The stock’s 52-week range is $20.25 to $38.25.

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