ROUND ROCK, TEXAS: Slumping personal computer maker Dell is bowing out of the stock market in a $24.4 billion buyout that represents the largest deal of its kind since the Great Recession dried up the financing for such maneuvers.
The complex agreement announced Tuesday will allow Dell’s management to attempt a company turnaround away from the financial pressures of Wall Street. Dell stockholders will be paid $13.65 per share. That’s better than the $11 level the stock was hovering at before word of the buyout talks began last month, but a steep markdown from the shares’ price of $26 less than five years ago.
Once the sale to a group of investors that includes investment firm Silver Lake is finalized, Dell’s stock will stop trading on the Nasdaq nearly 25 years after the company raised $30 million in an initial public offering of stock. Microsoft is investing in the deal with a $2 billion loan.
The company will solicit competing offers for 45 days.
The initial public offering of stock and Dell’s rapid growth through the 1990s turned founder Michael Dell into one of the world’s richest people. His fortune is currently estimated at about $16 billion.
Dell, who owns nearly 16 percent stake in the company, will remain the CEO.