Three sets of public shareholders have, in recent years, done deals with Michael Dell. A fourth would have been a charm. But that last group, VMware, understood the danger of sitting across a table from the Texas tycoon. On Tuesday (AEST), Dell announced a complex deal to list its shares again after going private in 2013. Dell will merge with a listed "tracking stock" subsidiary. This will create a new publicly listed Dell, whose equity value is roughly $US70bn. But merging with the high-flying software company VMware is not imminent.

Mr Dell's stake in his company was worth roughly $US4bn at the time of the management buyout from public shareholders. Today his stake is worth more than $US30bn. The crucial turning point in that value creation came from the second set of shareholders he dealt with. In 2016, Dell acquired the storage specialist EMC for $US67bn. EMC's key asset was VMware, which itself was listed but whose 81 per cent shareholder was EMC.

Financial Times