Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) revealed its earnings report for the first three months of 2013 this afternoon after the market closed. The company showed that it had earned $0.21 per share on revenue of $14.1 billion in the period. On today’s market, stock in the PC manufacturer fell slightly, finishing the day at $13.43 per share.
Anlaysts studying Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) were looking for the company to show earnings of 35 cents per share for the first three months of the year on revenue of $13.5 billion. In the same three months of 2012, Dell managed to earn 43 cents per share on revenue of $14.4 billion.
As happened with several firms, the interesting story with Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) right now is not the company’s business model or its products. The actions of the investors themselves seem to have much more to do with the value of the stock than the company’s fundamentals.
Months back, when Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) founder Michael Dell announced a deal whereby he and a group of backers would take the PC designer private, the move was greeted with skepticism by some investors, most notably hedge fund maven Carl Icahn, who argued that the deal undervalued Dell and did a disservice to the company’s shareholders.
Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) has seen its fortunes decline for years, with the firm’s share’s value declining since around 2004. Dell lost its way before the introduction of mobile devices, and it completely failed to take that market either. Michael Dell thinks the only way to change the firm’s fortunes is to take it off of the public market. Carl Icahn says he’ll have to sweeten the deal.
Icahn, and his allies among Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) shareholders, has nominated people, including himself, to the board of the company. The next board of the company will lead the discussion on the privatization deal, and alternatives to it. Icahn himself tried to buy Dell at one point during the negotiations, and that might appeal to him again.
Since the year began, and carried with it much talk of unlocking Dell’s true value, shares in the company have risen by more than 32 percent. Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) shareholders are hoping that Icahn can get a better price for their shares, though some might happily agree to the Dell offer, should it happen quickly.
