自彭博社（Bloomberg）报道戴尔公司（Dell Inc.）与两家私募股权公司就收购事宜进行谈判后，戴尔股价今日大涨。但是笔者认为戴尔私有化并非易事。

    今天开盘时，戴尔市值不足190亿美元，但是现在其市值已经超过210亿美元。因此，它的收购价可能至少为230亿美元。

    就算我们视金钱如粪土，假设私募股权公司只需承诺出资35%，它也相当于一张80亿美元的股权支票，或者在迈克尔•戴尔结转其2.73亿支股票中的大部分之后，额外筹集略少于50亿美元的资金。考虑到目前最高基金的规模大约为100亿美元（基金公司一般不愿意，而且明令禁止把基金10%以上的资金投入单一的某一家公司），因此，如果只有一两家私募股权公司参与收购，这个金额将过于庞大。所以，除有限合伙人的大型联合投资外，至少还需要三家公司参与。而有能力参与其中的私募股权公司总共也只有十家左右。

    这在2007年听起来是合理的，但在2013年却是另外一回事。因为许多大型交易均以失败告终，而且几乎所有的参股企业都成了价格垄断诉讼的被告。尽管投资公司强烈否认存在任何不道德行为，但是，这并不意味着他们愿意共同参与近年来最大规模的融资收购案，从而使自己再次站在风口浪尖之上。另外，近几年来，拥有100亿美元资金的公司数量已呈下降之势。

    不过，我们可以假设通过某种方法来解决股权问题。或许迈克尔•戴尔拥有处于危险边缘的大型主权财富基金。现在，只需要寻找大约150亿美元的融资。目前，债务市场非常低迷，仅有少数几个财团能满足这一融资需求。即使在所谓的私募股权 “黄金时代”，150亿美元+杠杆融资也非常罕见。如今，没有人要银行家在页岩气项目上下赌注；但他们把数十亿美元投入了个人计算机市场。原因之一在于，个人计算机市场的投入非常划算。

    诚然，戴尔的资产负债表上有大量现金（最近一次计算的金额为110亿美元），有助于减轻银行家的恐慌心理。但是，与此同时，戴尔还有40多亿美元的长期债务需要再融资。

    “我认为，这笔交易在挑战现实的极限，”彭博社报道后，一位技术型私募股权公司的高管向笔者解释道。“虽然这笔交易有可能发生，但我不会抱太大期望。”

    译者：乔树静/汪皓

    Dell Inc. (DELL) stock is spiking today on a Bloomberg report that the company is in talks with two private equity firms about being acquired. My gut take is that this would be very, very difficult.

    Dell opened trading today with a market cap just shy of $19 billion, and now is well north of $21 billion. So the buyout likely would have to be for at least $23 billion.

    Then let's be ridiculously generous and assume that the private equity firms only have to put together a 35% equity commitment. That's an $8 billion equity check, or just under $5 billion after Michael Dell rolls over most of his 273 million shares. Way too big a number for one or two private equity firms to do alone, given that the top fund sizes now are only around $10 billion (and firms are loathe -- and often contractually prohibited -- from committing more than 10% of a fund into any one company). So you'd probably need a minimum of three firms participating, alongside large co-investments from their limited partners. And that would be three firms out of a universe of less than a dozen.

    Sounds reasonable in 2007, but not in 2013. Many of those big club deals were losers, and almost all of the participating firms currently are defendants in a related price-fixing lawsuit. The firms all strongly deny any wrongdoing, but that doesn't mean they want to draw new attention to themselves by teaming up on the largest leveraged buyout in years. Moreover, the number of firms with $10 billion-ish funds has declined over the past few years.

    But let's assume the equity can be somehow worked out. Perhaps Michael Dell has some large sovereign wealth fund on the line. Now you need to find around $15 billion of leveraged financing. The debt markets are deep, but this ask is a few leagues below that. Even during the so-called "Golden Era" of private equity, $15 billion+ in leveraged financing was an extreme rarity. And bankers aren't being asked to bet on shale gas here; they're being asked to commit billions to the personal computer market. There's a reason this thing trades pretty cheap.

    Yes, it is true that Dell has a crazy amount of cash on its balance sheet ($11 billion or so at last count), which should help alleviate some banker fears. But, at the same time, it also has more than $4 billion in existing long-term debt that would need to be refinanced.

    "I think it's stretching the bounds of reality," one tech-focused private equity exec explained to me after the Bloomberg report came out. "It's possible, but I wouldn't hold my breath."