Flipping 'ell, Dell! IT giant preps to go public again, files its homework

Dell Technologies Inc is proposing to become a publicly traded corporation again, according to a filing lodged with America's financial regulator the SEC this morning. At the weekend, the WSJ reported the possibility that Dell would attempt to swap privately held shares in itself with the "tracking stock" it created when …

[Anonymous Coward]

Printouts - please eat without ketchup

Can Icahn and Mickey printout all of their ravings about how great it will be for Dell to be taken off the market and slowly eat them. In public. In front of the analysts. Without ketchup.

Humble pie meet face. Face meet humble pie.

On a more serious note anyone who thinks that the dealing with the banks and enforcement of covenants on loans is any better than dealing with NASDAQ reporting requirements is stark raving mad.

The only thing a large company taken private via a debt deal can accumulate is more bad debt. Any ideas that it will somehow become a shining beacon of innovation and regurgitate a slew of new products are not just mad, that is stark raving loonie territory. It is nor surprising that Dell present debt is larger than the national debt of several Eu countries. By the way - I do not see how taking it public through the backdoor without a refinance-via-share issue will help with that.

[Pascal Monett]

It does seem that Mr Dell is going to have to eat some crow.

I guess that, when you're the head of a multinational, sometimes it pays to shut up.

[2Nick3]

Re: Printouts - please eat without ketchup

5 years is a long time for things to change, especially with an Administration change in DC. What made sense 5 years ago might not any more, so I'm giving them some benefit of the doubt here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Printouts - please eat without ketchup

"What made sense 5 years ago might not any more"

Maybe you're 13, but the rest of us said this was stupid AF 5 years ago too. Buying into "on premises" in a cloud world was never going to be successful and only VMware still think that world will pay off.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Printouts - please eat without ketchup

Although famously as a public company they spent more on price raising share buy-backs than they ever earned in profits

If only their HW engineering was as sophisticated as their financial engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

Capitalism

You put your shares back in

You take your shares back out

In, out, in, out, bonuses all about.

You do the churning money and you get the angels' share

That's what it's all about.

You put some debt back in

You take some dividends out

In, out, in, out, hear the buyers shout.

You play games of tax avoidance and you stick it in the bank

That's what it's all about.

[macjules]

Re: Capitalism

Can we possibly say that this is a Dell floating in the deep?

Geddit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here comes the crap again

The quality of devices Dell pushes out rose considerably when they went private. Prepare for the crapware to flow once again in order to eek out that last cent of quarterly profit.

[J. R. Hartley]

Re: Here comes the crap again

Let's get one thing straight. Dell never gave a shit about you, or quality. They have done, and will continue to sell the cheapest shite they can possibly get away with.

Capitalism is pure dung.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Here comes the crap again

The quality of their gear may have improved, the quality of their service is dismal.

When I tried to order one of their new XPS 9570 laptops a few weeks back, they changed delivery dates as they went along, made it close to impossible to reach someone about it only to be told 'they didn't know', made it actually impossible to correct a minor clerical error on the order form, and took two weeks to release the 'reservation' they made on my credit card.

If this is any indication of their response once something really goes awry I pass. Which is what I did. I cancelled the order. Which I regret having to do because it looks like a really nice laptop.

And you wouldn' believe the hassle a customer had getting them to come on site to configure their brand new Dell redundant servers

So I can't in good conscience recommend them to anyone, not if they stay private. Not if they go public.

[EveryTime]

A loan shark might threaten to break your knees over a $50K gambling debt.

What do those banks threaten over a $50B debt?

I don't know how the conditions could have been more favorable. The US economy has been great. IBM and HP(E) practically abandoned great chunks of their business to Dell. Every disruption has favored their model.

[MonkeyCee]

Old saw

"A loan shark might threaten to break your knees over a $50K gambling debt.

What do those banks threaten over a $50B debt?"

As any fule kno, when you owe the bank $1000, you have a problem. When you owe them $1B, they have a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Back to working the "Wall" street

Hey Mikey, Big Tony says you owe him 50 Billion Dollars.

We can work this out privately, publicly, virtually, or in the cloud.

Regardless, I think you're gonna find that money.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if this is a misprint...

...and Dell is actually going Pubic?

Paris because... seriously? You need an explanation!?