Dell to acquire EMC for $67 billion

Dell is acquiring data storage giant EMC for an amount of 67 billion dollars, at the time of writing 59 billion euros. EMC has 60 days to find a better offer than Dell’s before the takeover goes through.

The latter complicates the deal, writes The Financial Times. The so-called ‘go-shop’ condition ensures that EMC can still accept an offer from another company. It would be built in to ensure that one of the main investors in EMC, hedge fund Elliott Management, gets “really the best deal.”

The acquisition price per share includes a portion in cash, $24.05 per share, and a portion in tracking stocks tied to the value of VMware, of which EMC owns 81 percent. This seems to disprove last week’s rumor that EMC should first divest VMware. The deal would instantly make Dell the largest in the enterprise storage market. EMC employs 70,000 people.

The acquisition is one of the largest to date in the tech sector. The biggest deal ever in the tech sector is the buyout of Vodafone from Verizon Wireless. Verizon paid $130 billion for Vodafone’s portion of Verizon Wireless. The largest acquisition in the tech sector to date was the takeover of the German Mannesmann by Vodafone, worth around 200 billion euros.