Dell is one of the biggest hardware vendors, but CEO Michael Dell’s efforts to take the company back to a private entity is turning out to be one of the biggest technology soap operas.
Yet another shareholder was planned for August 2, and yet again this one has been postponed.
The reason behind this delay is that the company’s founder Michael Dell and his main financial partner Silver Lake have improved their offer to shareholders once again.
News first emerged a few months back that Michael Dell wanted to acquire the company in its entirety in order to free the hardware maker from the conflicting and clashing whims of the shareholders. Investment outfit Silver Lake joined in to help and Microsoft is throwing in another $2 billion.
Cue Carl Icahn’s surprising and aggressive attempt to usurp the endeavor. Billionaire Carl Icahn waltzed in and one-upped Dell’s offer saying that he would pay $14 for each share of Dell, while still keeping some of the company private.
Last week Dell said that his best and final offer would be to give shareholders $13.75 a share, up from the first offer of $13.65 per share.
But AllThingsD is reporting that Dell and Silver Lake boosted their offer once again late last week, which now also gives shareholders a special dividend of 0.13 cents a share, to go with an additional 0.8 cents per share dividend in Q3 this year.
These new terms now add $470 million to the offer.
In return for this new offer, Dell’s special committee has agreed to amend the shareholder voting rules that Michael Dell requested. Previously the rules stated that shareholders that choose not to vote were automatically placed in the “no” category.
Now, however, these shareholders will not have their votes counted.
As a result of these changes, the Dell shareholder vote that was scheduled for earlier today has been postponed to September 12.
