Contact: Brenon Daly
Even before he talked products or markets, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger kicked off his comments to Wall Streeters at his company’s annual conference with a moment of ‘family time.’ In this case, it was to defend the current corporate parentage, with EMC owning a super majority of VMware as part of a larger ‘EMC Federation.’
Gelsinger essentially said that the way things are now in the EMC family is the way they should be. He went on to knock down rumors that he was planning – or even considering – any changes in the current corporate structure, specifically singling out recent reports about a kind of fratricide by VMware in which his company would take over EMC. ‘Better together’ is the family motto.
Not everyone agrees, however. Some critics, such as the kind that buy small chunks of stock in a company and then try to tell it what to do, counter that the current structure actually inhibits growth in the family.
The activist hedge funds have a point, given that VMware stock has basically flatlined over the past five years while the S&P 500 Index has nearly doubled. (The underperformance stands out even more when we consider that a half-decade ago, VMware was running at less than $1bn in quarterly revenue. It now puts up more than $1.5bn in sales each quarter. There aren’t too many S&P 500 companies that are two-thirds bigger now than they were in 2011. Most, including EMC, have only slightly grown.)
Given that Elliott Associates, an activist hedge fund that has already successfully pushed to reshuffle EMC’s board of directors, effectively crashed the VMworld party, it’s not unreasonable to expect even more changes in the EMC Federation. (Remember, too, that the ‘standstill’ agreement between Elliott and EMC expires this month.) There may well be some family drama before the year is out.
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