Dell Officially To Go Private As $24.9bn Offer Is Accepted

Michael Dell is taking his company private again, bringing to a decisive end a long saga in which he had to fight off activist investor Carl Icahn.

A vote saw holders of a majority of Dell’s outstanding shares approve of the deal, which will give them $13.75 in cash for each share of Dell common stock they hold.

Dell deal done

“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, who will now remain as chairman and CEO of the company for certain.

“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.”

The deal is expected to close before the end of the third quarter of Dell’s fiscal year 2014.

Dell wants to take his company private to make big strategical changes, away from PCs to the data centre and services around it, without having to worry about the reaction of the market.

Icahn had pulled out of his tussle with Dell earlier this week, but continued to air his grievances. He compared Dell and his team to a dictatorship for delaying the eventual vote, whilst claiming Dell was offering 70 percent below the company’s ten-year high of $42.38 per share.

Do you know all about IT and the law? Take our quiz!