Symantec in talks to sell Veritas data-storage business to Carlyle for $7 bn - $8 bn

Security software maker Symantec Corp is in talks to sell its Veritas data-storage business to private equity firm Carlyle Group for $7 billion to $8 billion, Bloomberg today reported citing people with knowledge of the matter.

Symantec, which has been trying to sell Veritas for several months, is still negotiating the terms and no agreement has been reached, the report said.

Founded in 1983 as Tolerant Systems, renamed Veritas Software Corp. in 1989, and acquired by Symantec in 2005 for more than $13 billion, Veritas specialises in storage management software including the first commercial journaling filesystem, VxFS, VxVM, VCS, the personal / small office backup software Backup Exec and the popular enterprise backup software NetBackup.

Symantec had planned on spinning out Veritas as a separately traded company later this year if it could not find a buyer. In October 2014, Symantec separated its storage and security businesses.

Veritas posted revenues of $2.56 billion for the latest fiscal year ending 3 April 2015, and operating income of $486 million.

The California-based company has a market cap of $15.5 billion.