Dell has announced that its shareholders have approved a $25 billion deal to take the company private. Dell founder, chairman and CEO Michael Dell will acquire the company he founded almost 30 years ago in partnership with Silver Lake Partners. Stockholders will receive $13.75 per share of common stock plus a cash dividend of $0.13 per share for a total of $13.88 per share. In addition, there's also a guaranteed third quarter dividend of $0.08 per share that will be paid at or before closing. The total transaction is valued at approximately $24.9 billion.
Michael Dell has been working on a deal to take his company back private for a long time. The company announced plans to go private in partnership with Silver Lake Partners way back in February. Seven months later, the deal has finally been approved (though it's a little more than the $24.4 billion Dell talked about earlier this year).
"I am pleased with this outcome and am energized to continue building Dell into the industry’s leading provider of scalable, end-to-end technology solutions," said Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell. "As a private enterprise, with a strong private-equity partner, we’ll serve our customers with a single-minded purpose and drive the innovations that will help them achieve their goals."
Mr Dell went on to say that the company will continue to expand its enterprise solutions and services business. Right now, the company's bread and butter is PC sales but it's hoping to shift some of its focus away from the PC and mobile markets and focus more on the enterprise segment. Going private gives Dell the room to shake things up and make some really bold moves without shareholder scrutiny.
The deal is expected to close by the end of Dell's FY2014Q3 provided it passes the usual regulatory approvals.
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