Dell founder Michael Dell and investor Silver Lake Management have had their proposed $24.9bn buyout of ailing PC maker Dell approved by holders of the voting shares.
The buyout, which is the largest of its kind since 2007, has been approved by two-thirds of the shareholders, a source told Bloomberg.
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The ownership of Dell has been the focus of a long-running contest between the founder of the company and the billionaire Carl Icahn, an activist investor who wanted to acquire the company himself.
A few days ago, Icahn officially gave up his pursuit of Dell, leaving Silver Lake and Michael Dell as the sole bidders, finally enabling them to take the company private. Their latest offer was of $13.75 a share with a 13 per cent share special dividend.
In a letter to Dell's shareholders to announce that his pursuit of Dell was finished, Icahn suggested that the company was run by a dictatorship.
"Although the board accepted Michael Dell/Silver Lake's offer in February, it promised stockholders that the company would hold a meeting at which stockholders could make the final decision as whether or not to accept the transaction.
"The board recommended that stockholders vote in favour of the proposed transaction because it was Michael Dell/Silver Lake's 'best and final offer'," he said.
"Icahn and Southeastern [Icahn's private equity partner] argued that stockholders should not give up the huge potential of Dell and therefore should reject the proposed transaction.
"We won, or at least thought we won, but when the board realised that they lost the vote, they simply ignored the outcome. Even in a dictatorship when the ruling party loses an election, and then ignores its outcome, it attempts to provide a plausible reason to justify their actions," he added.
He went on to ask, jokingly: "What's the difference between Dell and a dictatorship? The answer: most functioning dictatorships only need to postpone the vote once to win."
