The Financial Times claims that Silver Lake’s buyout offer for Dell has gone to $15 a share, up from somewhere between $13 and $14.25, if a tablet-induced leveraged buyout can be put together.
Barron’s thinks large stockholders are pressing for $20 and the Wall Street Journal says Microsoft’s role in the affair is a “sticking point” and “one of several issues being hashed out ahead of a final buyout agreement.”
Microsoft has offered to kick in $2 billion or more for equity in the form of convertible preferred securities to take Dell private and is expected to have a say in Dell operations.
The parties are evidently trying to figure how big a sway Redmond would have.