EMC Corp. moved a step closer to being acquired by Dell Inc. this week, after the storage giant confirmed that the “go shop” period in which other companies are allowed to tender their own bids, has now passed.

Dell announced its plans to stump up $67 billion to buy EMC back in October, in a deal worth around $33.15 per share. However, in order to appease EMC’s shareholders, the companies said they would allow other interested parties a grace period in which to submit alternative bids for consideration. That period has now officially ended, and although EMC claims to have solicited other acquisition proposals, it says it didn’t receive any superior offers.

Which means that the original Dell deal “remains scheduled to close between the months of May and October 2016, subject to customary conditions, including receipt of required regulatory and EMC stockholder approval,” EMC said.

Unless of course, Dell’s accountants are unable to find a to avoid being lumbered with a potential $9 billion tax bill that could derail the deal. Most analysts agree they’ll probably find a way though, which means EMC will end up in the hands of Michael Dell and his partners from MSD Partners and Silver Lake sometime next year.

EMC once again reiterated how the deal would be the best possible outcome for the company.

“Once completed, the new business promises to be an enterprise powerhouse, with highly complementary routes to market, that will help customers drive their digital transformations and journeys to the hybrid cloud”,” EMC said.

The company promised that once it’s free to operate away from the intense glare of Wall Street’s investors, it would have the “freedom to innovate and invest for long-term leadership … while building out an aligned global ecosystem of partners”.

Dell looks to dump Perot Systems

For Dell, the acquisition means taking on an extremely heavy debt burden. Some estimates put Dell’s new-found debt at around $50 billion, and so it’s no surprise the company is looking to sell-off other, non-core assets to try and raise some much needed cash.

Previously, SiliconANGLE reported Dell was looking to dump Quest Software, SonicWall, Rapid Recovery (formerly AppAssure) and Perot Systems. Today, that speculation was reinforced by a report in Re/Code, which said Dell is asking for $5 billion for the latter business. Dell reportedly almost found a buyer for Perot Systems in Tata Consultancy Services, only for the two to disagree on price after several rounds of negotiations.