Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) shares are up more than 5 percent in late morning trades after the announcement that the company may sell its units that miss their targets. The company is currently evaluating the performance of its assets and units.
The note was in the company’s annual report filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which was filed Dec. 27. According to Bloomberg, that language did not appear in last year’s report.
Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) has been struggling with five quarters in a row showing declining sales, numerous botched deals and major missteps. The company is the subject of an FBI investigation after its purchase of software company Autonomy. Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) accused Autonomy of misrepresenting its financial situation before Hewlett-Packard acquired it in 2011. In October analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch predicted that the company was too far gone to come back.
Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman has said in the past that she doesn’t plan to spin off the company’s PC division, although her predecessor Leo Apotheker did look into doing that. The company’s PC unit reported $35.7 billion in sales for the 2012 fiscal year, which was about 29 percent of the company’s sales. Instead of spinning the PC unit off, Whitman combined it with the printer group, which was about $24.5 billion of the company’s fiscal year 2012 revenue.
At this point there is no speculation about which units Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) may sell off, but investors are responding positively to the possibility that the company will begin to dump its unprofitable parts so that it can turn its revenues around. Shares have fallen approximately 45 percent in the past year.
