Michael Dell To Buy Dell Inc. 175
awarrenfells writes "After a shareholder vote, Michael Dell is expected to buy out and take Dell Inc. private. This move comes in the wake of plans to move Dell into position as an enterprise computing provider, but some analysts state this move may have come too late, much of the target market being taken by IBM and HP already."
Nerval's Lobster provides some more details at Slash Cloud: "[T]he final buyout price was $13.75 a share, which includes a 13-cent-a-share “special dividend.” All told, that puts the deal’s price at $24.9 billion. In order to reach this point, Dell and Silver Lake had to fend off activist investor Carl Icahn and investment firm Southeastern Asset Management, which made their own combined play for a restructured capitalization. In a series of public letters, Icahn argued that Dell’s privatization proposal undervalued the company, and—at least until the beginning of September—made it very clear that he was willing to fight things out in court. By convincing the shareholders that his plan is the best route forward, Dell avoids what could have devolved into a very protracted and messy battle. Michael Dell wants to focus the majority of the company’s efforts on services, essentially remaking it into a tech firm more along the lines of IBM."
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
We need more CEOs with egos tied to their companies. At least they don't just loot them and run...
Re:M.Dell (Score:5, Insightful)
> You can't commoditize this kind of thing, after all.
Commoditize is the right word. When people hire professionals to provide services, they want to hire an expert. They want someone they can trust. Dell has always been about selling the lowest quality crap they can get away with and then not honoring their warranties.
Just look at their recent keyboard fiasco. The KB212 drops keypresses, and Dell has decided that instead of honoring their warranty and replacing the keyboards that they instead would strike-out and insult the people that call them for replacements. When my boss called Dell about the eight we had that were dropping keypresses, they said that our employees that had trouble were incompetent and did not know how to use a keyboard. He is a Dell fanboy so he fired a couple people. He actually believes that the people that complained didn't know how to use a keyboard. That sort of dishonest crap over a $12 keyboard proves that Dell has no intention of ever becoming a trustworthy company.
Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (Score:5, Insightful)
We need more CEOs with egos tied to their companies. At least they don't just loot them and run...
I get the sentiment and there is a degree of truth there but here is a counterexample: Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC
Always practice due diligence. Even if someone's name is on the sign, even if the founders are still running the place.
Re:M.Dell (Score:4, Insightful)
Firing people over broken keyboards? Wow, you should try to get out ASAP!
Not shutting down, just leaving Wall Street ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking of which, Steve Jobs must be laughing in his tomb. Dell should "re-embourse the shareholders and close the shop".
While he is returning money to shareholders he is not shutting down Dell. Its going private, its not going to be beholden to the quarterly desires of Wall Street. Dell is probably better of this way.