Symantec 2013 Annual Report Download - page 5

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•We demonstrated our commitment to returning excess cash to shareholders by repurchasing
49 million shares of our stock for $826 million at an average share price of $16.98, reducing
common stock outstanding by 7%, or a net 3.7% after adjusting for stock compensation.
We also announced our enhanced capital allocation strategy that over time is expected to return
approximately 50% of free cash ow to shareholders through a combination of dividends and
share repurchases while still enabling the company to invest in its future. Even as the stock price
appreciated between the announcement of our capital strategy and the rst dividend payment, we
set the rst dividend at an amount in line with the 2.5% yield target.
CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY
We are committed to integrating social, environmental and governance programs into our
business. In scal 2013, we focused on issues within three areas: Our People, The World, and Your
Information. We renewed our commitment to employees by creating a strategy to become a great
place to work and a high performing organization. The representation of women in management
increased for the rst time from 25% to 27%. Employees became even more engaged in the
community, logging a 41% increase in recorded volunteer hours from the year ago period.
We continue to recognize the importance of managing our resources, partnering with our
communities, and investing for the future. The expansion of our environmental management system
has improved our ability to reduce our environmental impacts. Half of our philanthropic investments
support partnerships in the area of education, with a focus on youth science, technology,
engineering, and math programs. In addition, we leverage our unique capabilities to provide
education and tools to help protect your online experiences. More information is available online at
www.symantec.com/corporate_responsibility.
THE OPPORTUNITIES AHEAD
In scal 2014, we are laying the foundation for people, processes, and infrastructure capabilities
to effectively scale our business for the long-term. This foundation, along with our strong assets and
enormous opportunities, will help us transition from being device-centric, protecting endpoints and
the data center, to having a broader focus of protecting and managing digital information. I’ve never
seen such a target rich environment with so many large unmet, underserved customer needs in
markets that are already growing 8-10%, according to IDC reports.
Individuals, businesses, and countries are using new ways to access their digital information as
the world is moving into an era of the “Internet of Things” with connected devices touching nearly
every aspect of our lives. This is creating new opportunities for us to develop products and services
which address mobile devices, web services, web platforms, and the emerging software dened data
center and network. Our unmatched technology assets, strong brand, ability to serve customers
from individual consumers to very large enterprises and governments plus our capability to lead an
ecosystem of deep partnerships, uniquely positions us to take advantage of these emerging trends.
I’m condent we have the right team in place to execute our multi-year roadmaps and implement
our critical go-to-market changes. The commitment and dedication of our employees coupled with
the unique market opportunities make me optimistic that we can achieve our goals in scal 2014
and beyond.
We appreciate the support we’ve received from our shareholders and hope you are as excited
about our prospects as we are.
Regards,
Steve Bennett
President and Chief Executive Ofcer