Dell has agreed to open its books to billionaire investor Carl Icahn. The company’s founder, Michael Dell, is leading a group of investors who want to buy out the company and take it private for $24.4 billion. Several major investors have said that undervalues the Round Rock-based company.
Now, Icahn says he has signed a confidentiality agreement that allows him to dive deeply into Dell’s financial information. Anthony Michael Sabino is a business professor at St. John's University.
“What it means is Michael Dell is in for the fight of his life, because Carl Icahn is a man with decades of experience as a corporate takeover artist," says Sabino.
"But if you’re a Dell shareholder, this is by and large good news," he says. "The company is on the auction block, so to speak. That means there’s going to be competition for it, and competition breeds higher prices.”
Shares in Dell gained almost 1.5 percent today following the news.
The company employs about 14,000 people in Central Texas.
