From Public Company to Private Company - Michael Dell Buys His Company Back!

Michael Dell founded Dell Computers back in 1984 with just $1,000 in capital. For the alst 25 years, shares in Dell have been traded publicly. But now Dell has taken the company "private" with the help of venture capital and Microsoft, paying $24.4bn for the privilege!

The Dell business is a terrific case study for business students. One reason that Michael Dell has been able to afford the "take-private" is that the Dell share price fell 31 percent in 2012 making the deal more affordable. The significant fall in the value of the business reflects investor concerns about the long-term future of Dell which saw its share of global PC sales fall from 12.3% in 2011 to 10.7% in 2012. Worse still, Dell operates in a market which is declining overall - PC sales fell 3.5% in 2012 as increasingly numbers of customers switch to mobile devices such as tablets.

Michael Dell has been at the helm in recent years, so he will know all about the strategic issues facing the firm. He returned as CEO in early 2007 after a two-year break and has embarked on a series of acquisitions to strengthen its market position in cloud computing, a service that allows companies to buy software online.