Dell Technologies Inc (DELL)

[mick]

lot of money/ excerpt/ It’s official: Dell is going private. 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.

News of the discussions between Dell and private equity firms, including Silver Lake, broke in January of last year. But the idea has been in the works for much longer. Michael Dell first mentioned the possibility in 2010, and he has reportedly been in talks to take the company private since June 2012.

Dell’s traditional businesses — PCs and server hardware — are in decline. Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets are eating away at desktop sales, and the new world of custom servers has seriously changed the data center landscape. So the company has been transforming itself into an enterprise software and services company. Michael Dell argues that the company will be better able to complete this transformation as a private company.