Dell said to mull going public – again – CNET

Dell may be getting ready for another IPO — five years after the computer maker took itself private.

Dell Technologies is exploring its strategic options to raise cash that include a public stock offering, Bloomberg reported late Thursday. The company’s board is expected to meet later this month to discuss its option, the news agency reported, citing unidentified people described as familiar with the matter.

A public stock market would be a dramatic about-face for Dell, long one of the world’s largest PC makers. Founder and CEO Michael Dell teamed up with Silver Lake Partners to acquire the company for $24.4 billion in 2013 and take it private.

Before the deal, the Round Rock, Texas-based company had been struggling. The company’s stock had lost about a third of its value over the previous year as it shifted focus away from its traditional computer market to providing business products in areas such as networking and storage.

Dell said at the time it remained committed to the PC market,  but Dell and rival Hewlett-Packard were having trouble competing with Asian rivals like Lenovo and Asus. Two years before going private, Dell was surpassed as the world’s second-largest provider of PCs by Lenovo.

Michael Dell, who maintained a significant equity investment in the company by contributing his shares of Dell to the new company, said at the time that going private was designed to give the company the time to turn itself around.

Dell had its first IPO in 1988.

A Dell spokesman declined to comment on the report.

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