A major Dell Inc (NASDAQ:DELL) shareholder has sold off its stake after The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE:BX) withdrew its bid for the struggling PC maker. The Oakmark Funds owned approximately 224.5 million shares of Dell as of the end of March. That’s about 1.4 percent of the PC maker’s outstanding shares.
The Wall Street Journal reports that The Oakmark Funds decided to sell its stake because it believed that since Blackstone had information it didn’t and decided that Dell Inc (NASDAQ:DELL) wasn’t worth its original bid, Blackstone must be right. In Oakmark’s view, Blackstone must had had some kind of “information advantage” because Dell’s former merger and acquisition chief is now at Blackstone.
“At Oakmark, we have always paid extra attention to the actions of investors who have access to information public investors don’t have,” Oakmark said in a statement. “On several occasions we have sold our holdings after a company conducted a strategic review of operations that did not result in the sale of the company.”
Oakmark said the offer from The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE:BX) was the one it had the most confidence in. The withdrawal left only the original bid from Silver Lake Partners and the company’s founder, Michael Dell, and the agreement with activist investor Carl Icahn. Two major shareholders—Pzena Investment Management, Inc. (NYSE:PZN) and Yacktman Asset Management L.P.—said they still oppose the original deal from the company’s founder.
Blackstone said it withdrew the bid because of the continuing weak demand for PC’s and also Dell’s declining profit margins.
As of the moment of this writing, shares of Dell Inc (NASDAQ:DELL) were up 1.41 percent.
