Dude, You’re Getting Perot Systems
by John Paczkowski
Posted on September 21, 2009 at 5:00 AM PT
David Johnson, the mergers-and-acquisitions specialist Dell hired away from IBM (IBM) earlier this year, has clearly been busy these past few months. This morning the PC maker announced plans to buy information technology services outfit Perot Systems (PER) for about $3.9 billion. Under the terms of the deal, Dell (DELL) will offer $30 a share for Perot, a 68 percent premium over Friday’s closing price Friday of $17.91.
“This significantly expands Dell’s enterprise-solutions capabilities and makes Perot Systems’ strengths available to even more customers around the world,” Dell CEO Michael Dell said in a statement. “There will be efficiencies from combining the companies, but the acquisition makes such great sense because of the obvious ways our businesses complement each other.”
The deal is expected to close some time in January and when it does, Perot will become Dell’s services unit.
An interesting move. While there had been speculation that Dell was looking to acquire a handset company like Palm (PALM), it seems Dell was far more interested in boosting its enterprise business by acquiring an outsourcer like Perot.
