Going private will give Dell the “passion and energy” of a technology startup, said Dell's vice president for Australia and New Zealand, Joe Kremer.
Dell CEO Michael Dell and investment partner Silver Lake completed their deal to buy out the company for US$24.9 billion late last month. Michael Dell has said that going private will remove pressure of answering to shareholders and give leaders more flexibility in decision making.
“The biggest thing that will change is that we have a much greater focus on the long term,” Kremer told Australian customers in a keynote at the Dell Enterprise Forum in Melbourne.
Since Dell will no longer be a listed company, “the outcome of any particular quarter becomes less important, and the outcome for our customers and our business in the long term becomes even more important”, he said.
“From a financial perspective as a private company, we’ll no longer be paying a half a grand dollars on dividends, we’ll no longer be doing stock buybacks, and we have more than $5 billion a year in positive cash flow.”
Kremer said Dell will maintain its focus on customers, with no changes to local teams handling customers and partners.
Michael Dell, who will own 75 per cent of the company under the new structure, has said he wants to be “very personally involved” in the company’s affairs, Kremer noted.
“There’s no question it’s a little unusual for a founder of a $50 billion company going private, and he’s putting more money in, and very keen to run things as a private company.”
Kremer said Dell is seeing significant growth in new businesses including software, services and data centres. Also, Dell has increased investment in research and development, he said.
“You can expect to see more and more investment and more and more growth in these new and emerging areas at Dell.”
Adam Bender travelled to Melbourne as a guest of Dell.
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