As some Wall Street pundits raise questions about Dell's buyout of EMC, Chief Integration Officer Rory Read has sent a memo to all Dell employees -- assuring them the EMC acquisition is on track to get done.
Within the memo, released in an SEC filing on Feb. 16, Read said the $67 billion deal is "on schedule under the original timetable and the original terms." Read also said he expects an EMC shareholder vote to occur this spring, with a finalized merger still expected between May and October 2016.
"We expect to complete the SEC review process in time to hold the EMC shareholder meeting to vote on the proposed combination in the spring, which is consistent with our original timeline," Read wrote. "We are also pursuing regulatory approvals in a dozen-plus countries in parallel with our efforts in the United States and European Union. Our Legal and Government Affairs teams are working through all the required regulatory review cycles in the applicable countries."
Financial Headwinds?
Read also addressed "chatter" about potential financial headwinds facing the deal.
"I can assure you any suggestions our debt financing is in jeopardy are off-target and do not reflect our financing terms and the progress of our financing to date," he wrote. "The debt financing is fully-committed and is being underwritten by many of the leading global banks. The process of syndicating and placing the debt for a transaction of this nature frequently encompasses a time period of several months from start to finish. That process currently is underway and remains on track, as planned.
Dell also plans to survey roughly 20 percent of its employee base, to see how team members are reacting to the pending deal. The first of several quarterly surveys will reach random Dell employee inboxes later this week, he indicated.
What Concerns?
The Rory Read memo emerges only a few days after the Dell-EMC deal allegedly hit some financing hurdles. However, leaders like Michael Dell, EMC CEO Joe Tucci and others have repeatedly stated that the deal will get done.
In addition to leading Dell's integration team on the EMC deal, Rory Read is a well-known channel advocate. He previously drove a pure channel sales and services strategy at Lenovo before becoming AMD's CEO and then ultimately joining Dell.
