Dell has won the bidding war for Quest Software agreeing to pay $28 a share, a 50 cent improvement on its last bid.
That brings the price to $2.36 billion, which is what JPMorgan claimed the company was worth weeks ago.
Insight Venture Partners, which offered $23 a share back in March, had to bring in Vector Capital, another private equity firm, to offer a financed cash bid of $25.75 a share. Dell retorted with $27.50 or about $2.32 billion. That’s where things were last Monday with the ball in Insight’s court.
The equity boys had Quest CEO Vinny Smith, who owns 34% of the company, on their side. He reportedly preferred their deal because he could keep running the systems management company but they couldn’t put the financing together according to the Wall Street Journal.