Talk of Dell going private sends PC maker’s stock soaring

Talk that Dell Inc. founder Michael Dell could announce a deal to take the company private has made investors giddy.

Dell’s stock soared 13% on Monday, the day the story broke, then jumped some more Tuesday. Late in the trading session, Dell share’s were changing hands at $12.94, up 65 cents, or 5.3% from Monday’s closing price.

The stock is still off its 52-week high of $18.36 reached last February. But it’s up nicely from its $8.69 low it hit late last year.

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Dell has struggled to transform itself on two fronts. Its PC business has suffered from the boom in tablets and other mobile computing. At the same time, Dell has been trying to reinvent itself through acquisitions into a player in enterprise cloud services.

But that transformation hasn’t been happening fast enough for investors, who have grown increasingly frustrated with the pace of progress at Dell.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Dell held talks in recent months with buyout firms Silver Lake Partners and TPG and that a deal to go private could emerge within six weeks.

A similar rumor circulated awhile back. The latest report has plenty of analysts expressing doubt that a deal will really get done.

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