Dell investor talks of EMC-style spin-offs
Silver Lake Partners MD points to SecureWorks and Boomi as candidates that have 'potential well beyond the Dell mothership'
Dell investor Silver Lake Partners has talked about the possibility of following EMC's example with VMware and spinning off certain Dell products.
Egon Durban, managing director of Silver Lake Partners, said a number of businesses within Dell are "potential spin [off] candidates", during an interview with Fortune magazine.
"There are many high-growth assets inside the business that have potential well beyond the Dell mothership, that are potential spin or combination candidates. We can work with Michael [Dell] and again, taking a very long-term view around portfolio optimisation, not selling them but actually unlocking value," he said.
"I think what [EMC CEO Joe] Tucci has done with VMware is a good example of that, where you can take something that people don't fully understand, buried in the portfolio, and unlock it while still having a partnership with the mothership."
Durban, who also sits on Dell's board of directors, pointed to SecureWorks – a cloud security specialist the firm acquired in 2011 – and Boomi – a cloud integration business bought in 2010 – as potential spin-off candidates.
Dell was taken private in 2013 following a buyout from Michael Dell along with Silver Lake Partners. Michael Dell has subsequently talked up the advantages of going private and indicated he expects more firms to follow this route.
Due to the company's private status, Durban said he could not talk about specific financial results but he did concede during the interview that it may be a "challenging year" for the company.
"I would say this year, vis-à-vis the financials we have actualised last year; we expect this year to be a very challenging year. The company is caught up in a Windows product cycle which is out of the control of the business. And you can see this in the reporting of large public companies. For us again you have big tech firms talking about layoffs, but that is not a priority for us," he said.
When approached, a Dell spokesperson said: "we don't have a comment to share at this time".