Michael Dell and Silver Lake have triumphed in their bid to take Dell private. Alex J. Mandl, the head of the company board's special committee overseeing the deal, announced this morning that a majority of stockholder votes had been cast in favor of the $24.9 billion bid. The New York Times reports that 65 percent of the votes cast were in favor of the deal.
The path to the victory for Mr. Dell was opened last month when Carl Icahn, who was making a competitive bid for the company backed by Dell stockholder Southeastern Asset Management, lost a bid in court to block the vote under revised rules that changed how many votes were needed for the Dell/Silver Lake offer to pass. Under the original rules, abstaining share votes would have counted against the deal; since Michael Dell himself could not vote, that would mean that he would have needed 43 percent of Dell shareholders to vote yes. The change allowed abstaining votes to be ignored.
Icahn wanted to delay the vote until after a shareholder meeting in which he hoped to get a group of new directors elected to Dell's board and scuttle Michael Dell's efforts. But on Monday, he announced he was ending his bid for the company—and promptly bought more stock in Apple. Icahn's exit left Dell's offer as the only one on the table for Dell stockholders.
The go-private acquisition is expected to be completed before the end of Dell's fiscal third quarter on November 30. After it is completed, Michael Dell is expected to accelerate the restructuring of the company—though as a result of its loan to fund the deal, Microsoft will have some influence over the route Dell takes going forward.
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