Dell Proposes $67bn Acquisition of Storage Technology Giant EMC

On October 12, Dell proposed merging with tech giant EMC to create a "premier end-to-end technology company".  This is a massive move for Dell and will give Dell a much stronger foothold in the enterprise market. The Board of EMC approved the deal but it still needs regulatory and shareholder approval.

Great news in theory for investors in EMC, although the share price of EMC peaked at the time of the announcement (at $28.35 a shared) and was on a downward trend since then.

EMC is best known as the storage technology company founded in 1979. However, its businesses include famous technology brands like RSA Security, VMWare for virtualization and Pivotal for cloud and agile development solutions. Perhaps less-well known is VCE, which specialises in converged infrastructure solutions and has a strong relationship with Cisco, including engineering, resale and support agreements. VMWare is anticipated to continue to trade publicly (VMW:NYSE). EMC really is an all round enterprise technology company and Dell wants to be that too.

Microsoft Ready to Eat Dell

Michael Dell, Microsoft and Silver Lake are preparing to re-take Dell for $24.4bn. This is a huge transaction in the "take-private" deal category.

John Brennan is an MD with Silver Lake in Menlo Park (San Mateo County, California). Christian Lucas (former Head of European Technology at Morgan Stanley) is an MD with Silver Lake in London.

Return of the Mac: A Recipe for Buying and Selling America's Failed Banks

Two of the America's top banking regulators - the OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) and FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) have widened the pool of buyers for failed banks by opening up bidding to both investor groups and individuals.

The bidding process was previously opened only to chartered banks and savings institutions but now virtually anyone can put up money to buy a bank. Open Sesame!

The recipe appears to have worked, with IndyMac being sold to a private group of investors (which included Michael Dell) for $13.9bn. (The Federal government took control of IndyMac in July 2008, a historical move documented in this CNN report entitle "The Fall of IndyMac"). The article also covers the rise of IndyMac and its asset class of "Alt A" loans (which has more relaxed documentation requirements than "A-paper" - considered to be "prime" lending).