Dell Inc., the world's third-biggest maker of personal computers, is going private in a deal valued at $24.4 billion, undertaking the biggest leveraged buyout since the financial crisis.
CEO Michael Dell and Silver Lake Management will pay $13.65 a share, the companies said Tuesday in a statement. That's 25% more than the closing price of $10.88 on Jan. 11, the last trading day before Bloomberg News reported the discussions. Mr. Dell is taking back majority control of the company he started almost three decades ago.
Microsoft Corp. is contributing $2 billion, according to the statement. Silver Lake, a technology-focused private equity firm, was working with partners to line up about $15 billion in funds for the buyout, people familiar with the matter have said.
The stock has lost more than half its value since January 2007, when Mr. Dell resumed his role as CEO, amid investor dismay with management's failure to cope with upstart competitors in mobile and cloud computing. By going private after a quarter-century as a publicly traded company, Dell is seeking more leeway to cut jobs and adopt strategy shifts needed to court high-margin customers spending billions on data centers.
Round Rock, Texas-based Dell's transaction, if completed, would be the biggest LBO since Blackstone Group's $26.2 billion acquisition of Hilton Worldwide Inc., which was announced in July 2007. That deal was struck just as credit markets were seizing up amid a surge in subprime-mortgage defaults. Banks, stuck with loans they couldn't sell to investors, backed away from financing leveraged takeovers.
