WSJ : Dell Nears Deal That Would Make It Public Company Again

(RTTNews) - Dell Inc. is nearing a deal that would once again make the PC and data-storage giant a public company, the Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with the matter.

Dell plans to announce as early as Monday that it intends to acquire via a share swap the DVMT tracking stock, which tracks its fast-growing VMware Inc. virtualization-software unit, the report said.

Terms of the agreement, which could still fall through, couldn't be learned, but Dell plans to acquire the DVMT shares at a premium and DVMT shareholders are also expected to receive several billion dollars in cash as part of the deal. Dell Technologies Inc., (DVMT) the tracking stock's formal name, has a market capitalization of nearly $17 billion, while VMware's is nearly $60 billion, after the shares rose this year on the possibility of a deal.

The tracking stock was created as a way to help finance Dell's purchase of storage pioneer EMC in 2016. The deal was largely in cash, but the remainder was paid via the new security that was linked to a portion of EMC's interest in the VMware business, which provides cloud-infrastructure services.

The company went private in a roughly $25 billion leveraged buyout in 2013 by its founder, Michael Dell, and investment firm Silver Lake.