“It’s official: Dell is going private,” Klint Finley reports for Wired. “Today, the company announced that stockholders have approved a buyout by eponymous founder, chairman, and CEO Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners.”
“Stockholders will be paid $13.88 in cash per share, plus a $.08 per share dividend for the third fiscal quarter, bringing the total buyout price to $24.9 billion,” Finley reports. “Dell’s transition from public to private company hasn’t been smooth. Michael Dell owned 15.7 percent of the company himself, but had to convince the rest of the shareholders to agree to a buyout. Activist shareholder Carl Icahn fought the process. But as Dell’s profits tanked by 79 percent, a buyout deal had to look attractive to stockholders.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Dell just gave the money back to the shareholders.
Karma sure is sweet!
10:01 EDT: Added Mikey photo as per comments below.
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Dell Dude? Yup, he’s a Mac user now, too – January 30, 2013
Apple now worth 38 times Dell’s market value – October 3, 2012
Biting words on Apple come back to haunt Dell – February 10, 2007
Steve Jobs emails Apple team: Michael Dell not the best prognosticator, Apple worth more than Dell – January 16, 2006
Bwahaha!
SIDAGTMBTTS!
Really MDN? No narrow-eyed slightly cross-eyed Michael Dell headshot? I would think you peeps would be doing cartwheels with this news?
Hahaha…I can’t wait for a reporter to mention that to Dullard and see his reaction!
why laugh? Isnt apple interested in going private one day too?
Probably, but not under the same circumstances I would imagine.
That Karma is a bitch… bwahahaha, oh how it must suck to convince people that your company is even worth the buyout.
Michael Dell’s beady lil eyes must have grown even closer to each other. Close set eyes may mean you can see, but still does not equate to vision.
Schadenfreude bitch!!!!
Actually, you’ve got to give Michael Dell credit. He said he’d give the money back, and when in that situation, he did.
In other words: He ate his own cake
You misspelled “crap”.
—–RM
No . . He said Apple should give the money back.
Yes, If he was running Apple.
Cockiness is usually unflattering and unrewarding, right, Mikey?
Yeeeesssssss! Damn that IS sweet.
Now stop serving cheap crap slathered in Microsoft.
Actually, he did not do the first part (SID) of that old quote. “SHUT IT DOWN.” Not yet… 🙂
No, the “Shut it down” part is part 2 of this story.
I wish Steve Jobs were alive to see this happen. Apple’s iPad is killing the PC industry and those in the PC market are just fighting for the scraps now. Good job Steve Jobs. Building the Mac Pro in Texas is just the Karma topper!
The problem with Dell isn’t that they made spectacularly bad computers that were simply laden with cheap pieces of plastic everywhere but that they failed to understand the consumer market and tried to go head to head with Apple with its consumer facing range of laptops but lost out due to the fact that it was running Windows. This goes to show that where a consumer has a choice over his computing tool of choice, he will inevitably plump for Apple due to higher manufacturing tolerances and a better OS overall.
So really Dell is relegated to serving the corporate market where cutthroat competition prevails and decisions are made by IT doofuses on the golf course sponsored by the giant in Redmond. Dell’s race to the bottom has about a mile to go before they hit the bottom of the Marianas Trench and have nowhere to go but towards the earth’s core.
Even IT doofuses get sick of cheap capacitors.
Hence, Dells money going back to the investors.
Oh, the irony.
At one time, Dell was the low-cost producer. That was the company’s unique advantage in its heyday of manufacturing in Round Rock, Texas. Over time, Dell shifted production to Asia to minimize costs in what became a commoditzed, cutthroat industry. But it did not take long for companies such as Acer, which manufactured Dell PCs to realize that they could produce a similar product for even less, and undercut Dell. And then, Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone and iPad. The glory days of the PC were over, and with it, sunk Dell’s fortunes.
By not investing in R&D or significant design teams, Dell focused on manufacturing efficiency instead. But doing so did nothing to make Dell PCs stand out. Like Microsoft and Intel, Dell missed the revolution started by the iPhone and iPad, and the shift away from desktop and laptop computing to tablets, most notably the iPad. To my knowledge, Dell does not make either a competing phone or tablet, focusing instead on WinTel laptops, servers and IT services.
In so doing, Michael Dell, like Steve Ballmer, missed two of the most pervasive computing and consumer electronics trends today. The announcement that Dell is going private shows the impact of the company’s failure to either anticipate or react to fundamental changes in the marketplace.
Dell can likely continue to as an IT services company, selling servers and laptops, and related services to corporations. But the glory days for Dell appear to be history. Funny how but ten years ago, the pundits would never have seen this coming.
But Steve Jobs did.
Dell actually has made tablets and smartphones for years, running Android and Windows OS’s. You totally get a pass for not noticing though – they are exactly as unremarkable and crude as you would imagine Dell tablets and phones would be.
Even Dell’s IT Services really suck.
I hope the whole thing goes under.
I can’t disagree with your analysis except to suggest that IT doofuses don’t play much golf. They are more likely aficionados of Dungeons & Dragons, bowling, and women’s beach volleyball.
MDN, please, just one more time…
Can we please have crosseyed Mickey’s
Infamous photo posted???
Schadenfreude!
The gnomes are still hard at work. Now if we only could figure out step 2.
Step 1: Give the money back to the Dell share holders
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Close the doors for good.
I used to be surrounded by Dells at work. And get grief from co-workers for being the Mac Tech. They weren’t even “PC’s” anymore- they were “Dells.” I helped a few teachers set theirs up. What a cheap piece of crap! Some complained that they had Macs in their classrooms instead of dells like at home. Some of them said they wanted Macs at home but their husbands insisted on Dells. Windows, and Dells. I’ll never, ever understand that choice.
Dude, he got “his” Dell!
Nice strategy. Have the CEO (who said he can’t/won’t bring the company back to profitability till he owns it) make the computer maker tank till shareholders have no choice but to sell the company him.
SIDAGTMBTTS?
To be accurate, Dell didn’t “shut it down”, he just bought out the stockholders. No doubt they wanted “more”, but at least they’re done with that albatross. This sale however means we’ll have no more market-cap comparisons of Apple and Dell. Guess we’ll have to get our jollies elsewhere.
The Dell Ditty, what a device.
I hope they go out of business.
It’s the proverbial headline that wrote itself.
Buyback is a bitch.
Michael Dell eats global amounts of crow.
I hope he’s got a massive appetite, I bet he regrets what he said about Apple now.
He sure did walk the talk.. will be interesting how the company charts its future now.
MDN missed the best headline:
“Apple Now Worth Infinite Times Dell’s Market Value”
——RM