It has been a long and arduous journey for Michael Dell. But after months of paperwork, and a successful thwarting of a hostile takeover attempt by a billionaire activist, Dell has finally gone private.
The company has announced that it will officially revert back to being a private firm starting Wednesday. Meaning today is the last day of public trading of its shares on the NASDAQ stock market for the third largest PC maker in the world.
What this also means is that company CEO and founder Michael Dell will not have to bow down to pressure from shareholders when making important decisions or determining the future course of the company — in an increasingly volatile PC market, it must be said.
Dell announced the news in a press release.
The process started earlier this year with him announcing a partnership with Silver Lake, though Microsoft also quickly joined in the fun with a $2 billion investment, or loan if you will.
Shareholders were offered $13.05 a share for their stock, and the total deal was worth $24 billion.
Thing would have, in all probability, been done before summer was over had activist investor Carl Icahn did not try to essentially steal the company from under the rug. In the end Dell decided to give shareholders $13.75 a share, to go with a special cash dividend of 13 cents per share to get his way.
Ultimately, the final deal came in at $24.9 billion, a very tidy sum of money.
But the deed is done, and now with Dell being a private company again, it will be interesting to see what kind of an impact it manages to create on the industry — it promises to be a fun few months.
Another important question here is what kind of a say Microsoft has in the whole affair. Up until now, Redmond seems to not have had a major influence on the company’s direction and business direction. Dell has released both Windows and Android tablets recently.
Still, one can never say what the future may bring.
