NCR Corp.'s chief executive officer, Bill Nuti, said he would focus on boosting foreign sales of products such as self-service grocery checkout machines after the spinoff of his Dayton, Ohio, company's largest unit, the data storage provider Teradata Corp.
"International is a great opportunity for us," Mr. Nuti said in an interview last week. "Growth will not occur suddenly. It will be more evolutionary than revolutionary."
Teradata, whose stock began trading Monday on the New York Stock Exchange, posted $340 million of operating income last year on $1.57 billion of sales — the highest profit margin for any NCR unit. Gil Luria, a Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst in Los Angeles, said shedding Teradata also allows NCR to expand global sales of its mainstay automated teller machines.
"Spinoffs often add value just because they let each management team focus on its own business," said Mr. Luria, who has a "buy" rating on NCR's shares but does not own any. "The main drivers for growth are the increased penetration of ATMs in developing economies such as Russia and China and the increased usage of deposit automation technologies in Western countries."
He expects NCR to produce overall growth of 2% to 4% in the next few years. Its financial self-service division, which includes ATMs, posted $172 million of operating income last year on $1.42 billion of sales.
Mr. Nuti said the spinoff would free NCR to expand its automation services. Last year 42% of its sales were made in the United States, and 33% were made in Europe.
"There are no synergies between the two businesses, none at all," he said. Keeping Teradata, which NCR purchased 16 years ago, "would've only been great for my ego."
