Symantec has reportedly finalised an $8 billion deal to sell its Veritas data storage arm to Carlyle Group.
The private equity group has been in talks with the security firm since early last month according to Bloomberg, but Reuters reports that an agreement has now been finalised, citing "a person familiar with the matter".
The deal could be announced within the week, as Symantec's quarterly earnings report is due by next Tuesday August 18, with the sale apparently being negotiated for between $7 and $8 billion.
This deal comes after industry pressure from investment firm Elliot Management Corporation, which has repeatedly pushed companies like EMC and Citrix to divest themselves of "underperforming product lines".
Similar pressure from the group also drove long-standing Citrix CEO Mark Templeton to resign last month, who stepped down in order to allow the company to focus more on cloud offerings.
The security firm has been seeking a buyer for its independent data management and storage division for the past few months, despite only spinning it off from the main company in January of this year.
Veritas has been experiencing slow growth, with a yearly revenue of just $2.56 billion compared to Symantec's $4.2 billion.
This is supposedly a symptom of the data storage industry as a whole, and Bloomberg reported that serious corporate restructuring is needed to improve Veritas's lacklustre revenue growth.
This news comes after Veritas recently unveiled a new portfolio of data management solutions.
The portfolio includes five new products and releases, and is designed to give customers better visibility over their datacentres and storage networks.
Symantec declined to comment on the sale when contacted, and Carlyle Group were unable to provide comment at the time of publication.
