前几天晚上，黑石集团（The Blackstone Group）宣布放弃竞购戴尔公司（Dell Inc.），给出的一个原因是这家个人电脑制造商的“财务状况正在迅速受到侵蚀”。特别是，戴尔已经将“当年的运营利润预期从37亿美元下调至30亿美元。”

    黑石所说的是3月25日，戴尔在其初步股东委托书中所引用的数据。委托书中提到了戴尔董事会和特别委员会如何对管理层的财务预期失去信心，其中包括“37亿美元”这个数据。因此，戴尔公司从外部聘请了波士顿咨询公司（Boston Consulting Group，BCG），来为它提供财务预测。

    波士顿咨询公司在一月中旬向戴尔特别委员会提交的报告认为，戴尔2013年的运营利润实际上应该设定为34亿美元。进行报告陈述时，艾弗考尔合伙人公司（Evercore Partners）也在场。戴尔特别委员会后来聘请这家公司负责“询价程序”。之后到了二月初，艾弗考尔利用那些数据和其他信息向董事会报告称，2013年的净收入实际应该在30亿美元左右。

    于是，情况开始变得扑朔迷离。

    黑石集团的一位发言人称，公司在“询价程序”结束时（3月22日），也就是在提交其投资意向之前，对艾弗考尔30亿美元的预测一无所知。这意味着艾弗考尔根本没有将信息披露给黑石，也意味着这些信息并未提交到黑石集团有权查阅的保密资料库。似乎黑石已经得知了波士顿咨询集团关于34亿美元的预测报告，但在前两天晚上写给特别委员会的信中，黑石并未提到这件事。

    据知情人士透露，30亿美元的预期实际上直到3月31日才被提交至资料库。而在那时，报告的内容早已通过3月29日的委托书对外公开。笔者曾试图联系戴尔特别委员会和艾弗考尔，确认上述事实。

    如果这个时间表是准确的，那么问题肯定出在戴尔身上。寻求更高的收购价格确实是艾弗考尔和特别委员会的工作，但他们不应通过扣留重大信息这种方式来达成目的。所以，肯定有人犯了错误。不论他是代表戴尔，还是黑石集团的利益。

    还有一点需要注意的是，早在3月15日，美国全国广播公司财经频道（CNBC）的戴维•费伯曾报道称，委托书将对37亿美元的预测进行大幅下调。

    When The Blackstone Group ended its pursuit of Dell Inc. last night, on of the reasons it cited was the PC maker's "rapidly eroding financial profile." Specifically, that Dell had "revised its operating income projections for the current year to $3.0 billion from $3.7 billion."

    What Blackstone (BX) is talking about is referenced in Dell's (DELL) preliminaryproxy statement, dated March 25. It tells of how Dell's board and special committee had begun to lose faith in management's financial projections, which included the $3.7 billion figure. So it hired an outside party, Boston Consulting Group, to provide an alternate financial forecast.

    It would be BCG's report, submitted to Dell's special committee in mid-January, that would argue Dell's operating income for 2013 should actually be pegged at $3.4 billion. Also present during the presentation was Evercore Partners (EVR), which Dell's special

    committee later hired to run the "go-shop" process. Evercore would later use that data, along with other information, to present a case to the board in early February that 2013 net income actually would be around $3 billion.

    A Blackstone spokesman says that the firm had no knowledge of the $3 billion figure prior to submitting its indication of interest at the end of the "go-shop" process (March 22). That would mean that Evercore never shared such information with Blackstone, and also would mean that the information was not entered into the confidential data room to which Blackstone had access. It does seem that Blackstone had access to the BCG report that put income at $3.4 billion, although Blackstone does not mention that in last night's letter to the special committee.

    This is where things begin to get hazy.

    A source close to the situation says that the $3 billion figure was not actually submitted to the data room until March 31. By that point its contents were already public record, via the March 29 proxy. I have reached out to the special committee and Evercore for confirmation of these facts.

    If this timeline is accurate, then something is really askew in Round Rock. It was Evercore and the special committee's job to seek out higher bids, but not by withholding material information. So someone seems to have dropped the ball here. Either on behalf of Dell, or on behalf of Blackstone.

    Worth also adding that, on March 15, CNBC's David Faber reported that the proxy would show a significant downward revision to that $3.7 billion figure.