After 25 years as a public company, the Dell board met Monday night to approve an offer to take the company private for $24.4 billion.
The deal, which values Dell at $13.65 a share, was announced Tuesday morning. The stock closed at $13.27 Monday, down 2.6%.
Stockholders still have to approve the buyout. The agreement gives the company 45 days to “go shop” and find a better deal. It would mean a $180 million termination fee.
Taking Dell private is supposed to give the one-time PC leader now under pressure from Apple and the tsunami it released the chance to get into mobile computing. It also wants to catch up with the cloud and sell to the enterprise.