Amazon urged to join eBay, HP in spinoff trend
2015 could be the year of the spinoff, with eBay (EBAY), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and others spinning off divisions to unlock shareholder value, according to the Edge Consulting Group. E-commerce company eBay plans to spin off its digital payments unit PayPal as a separate public company next year. And HP plans to split into two publicly traded entities. One company will be devoted to servers, software and cloud technology, while the other will focus on HP’s traditional PC and printer businesses. Meanwhile, Symantec (SYMC) plans to split into two companies as well, with one focused on security and another on information management. In a report Monday, Edge Consulting Group suggested two other potential spinoffs involving Amazon.com (AMZN) and EMC (EMC). In October, hedge fund manager Elliott Management urged data storage company EMC to spin off its majority-owned VMware (VMW). “EMC and VMware have grown and are now competing…