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Restructuring and transition: We have engaged in various restructuring and transition activities over the past several years that have resulted in costs associated with severance, facilities costs, and transition and other related costs. Transition and other related costs consist of severance costs associated with acquisition integrations in efforts to streamline our business operations, consulting charges associated with the implementation of a new Enterprise Resource Planning system, and costs related to the outsourcing of certain back office functions. Each restructuring and transition activity has been a discrete event based on a unique set of business objectives or circumstances, and each has differed from the others in terms of its operational implementation, business impact and scope. We do not engage in restructuring or transition activities in the ordinary course of business. While our operations previously benefited from the employees and facilities covered by our various restructuring charges, these employees and facilities have benefited different parts of our business in different ways, and the amount of these charges has varied significantly from period to period. We believe that it is important to understand these charges and, we believe that investors benefit from excluding these charges from our operating results to facilitate a more meaningful evaluation of current operating performance and comparisons to past operating performance.

Impairment of intangible assets: During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012, we recorded an impairment loss of $4 million, resulting from lower than expected future cash flows of non-core brand names. This impairment loss was primarily due to increased focus on using the Symantec and Norton brands rather than non-core brands in go-to-market efforts. We do not believe that these charges are indicative of future operating results. We believe that investors benefit from excluding these charges from our operating results to facilitate a more meaningful evaluation of current operating performance and comparisons to past operating performance.

Acquisition/divestiture-related expenses: The authoritative guidance on business combinations requires us to record in the statement of income, certain items that at the time of an acquisition would have been recorded to goodwill under the old authoritative guidance. We have excluded the effect of acquisition-related expenses from our non-GAAP operating expenses and net income measures. We incurred expenses in connection with our acquisitions, which we generally would not have otherwise incurred in the periods presented as a part of our continuing operations. Acquisition/divestiture-related expenses consist of professional service expenses. We believe it is useful for investors to understand the effects of these items on our operations. Although acquisition/divestiture-related expenses generally diminish over time with respect to past transactions, we generally will incur these expenses in connection with any future transactions.

Settlements of litigation: From time to time we are party to legal settlements. We exclude the impact of these settlements because we do not consider these settlements to be part of the ongoing operation of our business and because of the singular nature of the claims underlying the matter.

Non-cash interest expense: Effective April 4, 2009, we adopted authoritative guidance on convertible debt instruments, which changed the method of accounting for our convertible notes. Under this authoritative guidance, our EPS and net income calculated in accordance with GAAP have been reduced as a result of recognizing incremental non-cash interest expense. We believe it is useful to provide a non-GAAP financial measure that excludes this incremental non-cash interest expense in order to better understand the long-term performance of our core business and to facilitate the comparison of our results to the results of our peer companies.

Gain on sale of joint venture: On March 30, 2012, we sold our 49% ownership interest in the joint venture to Huawei for $530 million in cash (less costs associated with the sale of the joint venture of $4 million). The Company's management excludes this gain when evaluating its ongoing performance and therefore has excluded this gain when presenting non-GAAP financial measures.

China VAT refund: During the third quarter of fiscal 2013, we received a tax incentive from the China tax bureau in the form of value-added tax ("VAT") refunds. The tax incentive is provided to software companies that perform research and development activities with respect to software in China. The refunds relate to VAT collected on qualifying software product sales during the periods from January 2011 through December 2012. This tax incentive plan was updated late in 2011 and it enabled companies to retrospectively apply the incentive back to January 2011. To maintain comparability of results across periods, we have excluded from our non-GAAP financial measures the portion of the refund representing periods ended prior to the third quarter of fiscal 2013.

Release of pre-acquisition tax contingencies: During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012, we remeasured certain tax accruals related to pre-acquisition contingencies. As a result, we realized benefits to GAAP net income of $7 million and non-GAAP net income of $1 million. The non-GAAP benefit was due to the reversal of accrued interest recorded in our income statement during our post acquisition periods. Accordingly, the amount of this accrual has not been excluded from Symantec's non-GAAP results.

During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013, we recorded a benefit to GAAP net income of $7 million for the state impacts of the VERITAS 2002-2005 final closing agreement. The benefit has been excluded from our non-GAAP results as it relates to a pre-acquisition contingency.



MEDIA CONTACT:
Nicole Kenyon
Symantec Corp.
415-609-3842
Email Contact

INVESTOR CONTACT:
Helyn Corcos
Symantec Corp.
650-527-5523
Email Contact