Dell Confirms a $24.4 Billion Deal To Go Private

[engine]

I find it interesting the company is going in the opposite direction of many others by heading for IPO.

It's official: Dell is being taken private for $24.4 billion, or $13.65 a share in cash, a transaction that will allow the company to turn itself around away from shareholder scrutiny.

Michael Dell, who owns about 14 percent of Dell's common shares, teamed up with Silver Lake Partners to acquire the company. Microsoft also kicked in a $2 billion loan.

Following completion of the transaction, Michael Dell will continue to lead the company as CEO. He also will maintain a significant equity investment in the company by contributing his shares of Dell to the new company, as well as by making a "substantial" additional cash investment.

Dell Confirms a $24.4 Billion Deal To Go Private [news.cnet.com]

[incrediBILL]

Unless I'm misreading the tea leaves, MS helping Dell go private plus investing in the BN Nook technology may be signs they're putting all the pieces together to finally reinvent MS as a full service hardware, software and media company to go after Apple.

Sadly, they should be aiming at Android because other than the Nexus devices, it's a full software play, like MS, which is now 70% of the market based on reports released days ago.

Apple is based on cult-like fanatics buying there stuff while MS is more a corporate business brand. Maybe that's the play, maybe they're going to reinforce the corporate brand further with MS hardware on the theory that big companies would buy it on the same premise they used to buy IBM.

I think the perfect merger to make the ultimate company would be Samsung for phones/tvs, Dell for computers, Amazon for media and cloud computing, and Microsoft for all the OS and biz software but somehow I don't see that particular group willing to merge.

[RhinoFish]

owing MS a ton of money... Michael may regret that later... perhaps influencing future decisions he has to make. he's brilliant though, it's likely small thinking on my part, to guess he's left himself without the ability to maneuver as he sees fit.

[engine]

I don't know, RhinoFish. I wonder if there's a strategy there to install Microsoft on every Dell product.

[johnhh]

Looks like a three way deal to me. Dell get the inside track on Microsoft developments, Microsoft get a distribution channel, and they can do what they want away from the short-term outlooks and demands for profits from Wall Street.