What’s gone wrong at Agilent?
Agilent appears to be cutting its test & measurement business adrift. The company has announced plans to split into two: one part, which retains the Agilent name, will take the business related to life sciences, diagnostics and applied markets; the other, nameless, is the T&M business.
It's the latest stage on an interesting journey for the T&M company. Once part of Hewlett-Packard, it was hived off when HP decided to focus on its computing and printer business. Now, it appears to be surplus to requirements again.
And that's an interesting state of affairs for a business with a projected turnover of $2.9billion this year.
What do we read into the move? Has demand for T&M peaked? Hard to believe that. Has Agilent fallen behind the market? Not apparently. So if T&M isn't worth keeping, what has gone wrong? And does this send shivers through the rest of the market?
