$MSFT in talks to invest $1B-$3B as part of $DELL leveraged buyout; investment seen as mezzanine financing, likely in form of a preferred.
— CNBC (@CNBC) January 22, 2013
A new report from CNBC is stating that Microsoft is part of a group that is proposing to help with a leveraged buyout of Dell and the company may be looking to toss in 1-3 billion dollars.
The report indicates that Microsoft would likely receive preferred stock in the company for its contribution which will put the vendor in an interesting situation considering that the company has been moving deeper into the hardware market over the past few years.
If Microsoft does participate in the leveraged buyout of Dell that has been rumored over the past few weeks, how will this position them with other OEMs? While a 1-3 billion dollar investment will not net Microsoft a majority stake in Dell, it will force the company to have a vested interest in the performance of the brand. Seeing as vendors were already upset with Microsoft selling the Surface, we can only imagine how they will react if Microsoft takes partial ownership in a PC vendor.
Even though Dell has been struggling as of late, the company does have significant assets to the brand and strong ties to the enterprise. With Microsoft taking an ownership chunk, it could be a defensive play to keep Dell from moving away from Microsoft technologies and pursuing other platforms. But, at this point, it’s all conjecture based on CNBC’s information.
At this point, we must wait and see if the rumor does materialize and if so, we will be quite curious to see how Microsoft plays the investment to its shareholders and at the same time, calms the nerves of its OEM partners.
Source: CNBC on Twitter
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