UPDATED 10:24 EDT / SEPTEMBER 07 2016

NEWS

Dell completes historic $67B acquisition of EMC

The drama is finally over.

Nearly a year after announcing an audacious $67 billion bid for EMC Corp., Dell Technologies Inc. today officially announced that the deal is done. The combined companies begin doing business today under the Dell Technologies brand.

It has actually been all over but the shouting since July 19, when 98 percent of voting EMC shareholders approved the deal. The stumbling block since then has been China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), which finally cleared the proposed combination three weeks ago. MOFCOM approval was the final regulatory condition to closing the transaction.

Most analysts say Dell got a good deal in acquiring EMC. The combination lays out a quick path for the combined company to offer a “converged infrastructure” of computing, storage and networking that customers are demanding. “We plan to be the trusted provider of infrastructure for the next Industrial Revolution,” said Dell Technologies Chief Executive Michael Dell.

An ebullient Dell ticked off the power of the combined company in this morning’s analysts call. “Today we have the leading positions in PCs, servers, storage, virtualization, security, converged and hyper-converged infrastructure and platform-as-a-service,” he said. “We’re a leader in 20 Gartner Magic quadrants. We have more than 20,000 patents and applications pending. This is fueled with $4.5 billion in annual R&D spending back by the industry’s most powerful supply-chain, who drive efficiencies across our entire family businesses. We also have a more powerful channel than any other technology company anywhere.”

Dell and CFO Tom Sweet addressed doubts about the company’s ability to service the $47 billion in debt it took on to finance the deal. “We’re completing this transaction on historically good terms,” Dell said. “Our payments are much less than what our competitors pay in share buybacks and dividends. Any FUD (fear/uncertainty/doubt) out there to the contrary is just factually incorrect.”

Sweet noted that Dell’s debt rating has been upgraded twice since the leveraged buyout was announced. He said the company expects cash flow to be three times the amount needed to service the debt. Sweet also ticked off some of the strength the combined company brings to the market: $74 billion in revenue, serving 98% of Fortune 500 companies, with 140,000 employees, 30,000 full-time customer service professionals and a presence in 180 countries.

Dell hasn’t commented on any concessions it gave the Chinese government in order to gain clearance for the deal. Chinese authorities were reportedly concerned about the possibility that a combined Dell/EMC would create more competition for for Chinese companies such as Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and Lenovo Group Ltd.

Reporting structure intact

Organizationally, Dell today becomes Dell Technologies Inc. The company will report direct-to-consumer and enterprise financial results separately and will take a hands-off approach to the EMC Federation companies, including VMware Inc., Pivotal Software Inc., RSA Security LLC and Virtustream Inc. All will continue to report earnings separately, Dell said.

One of the most appealing aspects of the EMC acquisition was the opportunity for Dell to build a presence in enterprise cloud computing. EMC not only brings strength in converged in hyper-converged infrastructure, but a cloud computing story that resonates with enterprises.

“We can help customers build private clouds and hybrid clouds, and with the addition of Pivotal’s Cloud Foundry, we can add the leading platform for building cloud native applications,” said David Goulden, president of the Dell EMC Infrastructure Solutions Group. “And if they want to run applications in the cloud, they can move to Virtustream.” Michael Dell said there are no plans to merge VMware’s vCloud Air public cloud with Virtustream.

Dell Inc. went private three years ago, and the shoe is apparently fitting well. Speaking on the analysts call, Michael Dell indicated no interest in re-entering the public stock market. “We don’t have to cater to short-term thinking in the market,” he said. “We can think in terms of decades.” He added that the company has grown market share in its core markets for the last 13 straight quarters.

For all the drama around the fund-raising and shareholder opposition, the acquisition actually went pretty smoothly, said Jeremy Burton, chief marketing officer at Dell Technologies. “This has pretty much run like clockwork,” he said.

Customers shouldn’t expect much change in their sales teams for at least six months as existing compensation plans play out. “Things are going to remain as they are until end of Dell’s fiscal year in February, and we’ll make broader changes then,” he said.

One thing, customers should expect is more messaging around the Dell Technologies brand. “A lot of people don’t really know what Dell Technologies stands for,” Burton said. With the addition of market-leading businesses in the areas of virtualization, security, platform-as-a-service, mobile management and cloud infrastructure, today’s Dell is our bigger and more diverse than the brand most people know.

The bottom line is that “We’re the only guys that have got a competitive stack,” Burton said. “IBM doesn’t any more more and [Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Co.] is about to unload all its software. It’s ourselves and maybe Oracle, but Oracle isn’t focused on server infrastructure.”

 


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