Hewlett-Packard started in 1939 by selling an audio oscillator, a box that measured sound. Sixty years later, HP cut that measuring business loose and called it Agilent. The new company took the test gear, the chip unit, the chemical analyzers and the medical equipment, while HP kept the computers and printers. Agilent priced its IPO at $30 a share in November 1999. It raised about $2.1 billion, all of it paid back to HP.

HP Splits Itself in Two

In March 1999 HP decided it had grown too wide to run as one company. The computer and printer side faced fast, cheap rivals. The instrument side sold oscilloscopes, signal analyzers and lab machines to engineers and chemists who cared more about precision than price. Agilent became the home for the instrument side. Its pitch to investors was simple: the tools that test the internet's chips and fiber deserved a company of their own, with its own stock to pay its own engineers.

Sixty Seven Percent by Lunch

Agilent sold 72 million shares at $30 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the single letter A. The stock touched $50 within its first hours of trading. HP handed its remaining shares to its own stockholders in 2000. Agilent later sold its medical unit and its chip business, and in 2014 it spun off its electronic test arm as Keysight. What stayed was the life sciences and chemistry lab business. Agilent still trades on the NYSE under the ticker A.

Cover: Antelope, Gottfried Engelmann. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for an antelope (agility).