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Michael Dell’s Role in Dell Buyout Questioned

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Dell HQ
courtesy Dell Inc.
Private equity firm Silver Lake Partner’s rush to fund a buyout of Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) has accelerated. And investors have begun to ask if founder Michael Dell has a conflict of interest between his role as CEO of a public company and his role as a possible buyer of that company.

Bloomberg reports:

Silver Lake Management LLC and partners are close to lining up about $15 billion in funds for a buyout of Dell Inc. (DELL), the third-biggest maker of personal computers, said people familiar with the matter.

Lenders including Credit Suisse Group AG, Royal Bank of Canada, Barclays Plc (BARC) and Bank of America Corp. may informally disclose terms to a small group of possible buyers of the bridge loan as soon as today, said one of the people, who asked not to be named as the process is private.

The Wall Street Journal writes:

As founder, CEO, 15.7% owner and company namesake, Dell the man has outsize influence on Dell the company.

Reports say Mr. Dell is playing a role in the transaction and contributing his stake to the deal, and two people familiar with the matter say Mr. Dell initiated the idea. The involvement will eventually get shareholders wondering where his allegiances lie. Is he a buyer, a seller, or somewhere in between?

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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