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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Activist investor Carl Icahn has convinced [reuters.com] the Xerox Corporation to split into two companies [marketwatch.com]. The split will create an $11 billion company that continues to sell copiers and printers, as well as a $7 billion company that operates outsourced services such as bill processing and call centers for governments and corporations. MarketWatch has more details:

As part of the move, billionaire Mr. Icahn will get three seats on the services company's board. Mr. Icahn in November disclosed a stake in Xerox and said he would seek talks with the company about its future. With an 8.1% stake in the company, Mr. Icahn's hedge fund is now the second-largest shareholder after index giant Vanguard Group.

[...] Xerox would continue a trend in corporate America in which diversified companies are splitting into more highly specialized pieces. H-P split into Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., which is focused on servers, professional services and software, and HP Inc., which sells personal computers and printers. Online-auction pioneer eBay spun off its PayPal payments-processing unit in 2015.

The separation would unwind what had been Ms. Burns's signature deal, one that she started pursuing shortly after being named Xerox's CEO in 2009. The ACS acquisition was a way to shift the company's focus from document handling to a range of services for business and government customers. The deal jolted Xerox's corporate identity, adding 74,000 new ACS employees to a workforce of 54,000, and turned it into a company with $22 billion of revenue practically overnight.

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