Report: Dell Hits Financing Hiccup In Blockbuster $67B EMC Acquisition

The New York Post is reporting that Dell is finding it more difficult than it expected to raise the initial round of funding for its $67 billion acquisition of storage giant EMC.

The Post reported Thursday that Dell, which needs to raise $45 billion to finance the acquisition of EMC, had expected to price the first $10 billion of debt on Wednesday. However, the group of banks working on the deal, which is being led by JPMorgan, needs another 10 days to arrange the loan, The Post said.

The New York Post, citing an unnamed source, said the loans have proved harder to sell than expected because of tightening credit markets.

[Related: What Will A Merged Dell-EMC Look Like?]

Furthermore, Dell has run into a possible delay in its plans to sell its Perot Systems professional services business as one of the leading suitors for Perot, France-based Atos, has dropped out of the bidding, the Post reported, again citing an unnamed source. That leaves India-based Tata and Japan-based NTT Data as the two remaining suitors, the Post reported.

’The EMC transaction is on schedule under the original timetable and the original terms,’ said a Dell spokesperson in an email to CRN.

Bob Venero, CEO of Holbrook, N.Y.-based solution provider Future Tech, No. 232 on the CRN 2015 Solution Provider 500, said the small delay in financing the initial $10 billion is "miniscule when you think of the size of this deal."

"Everyone is trying to create FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) with this deal," said Venero. "But the loans are going to happen and the deal is going to get done. History will prove once again that (Dell CEO) Michael (Dell) will make it happen just as he made it happen when he completed the largest leveraged buyout in technology history even with Carl Icahn trying to disrupt the process."

Michael Goldstein, president and CEO of LAN Infotech, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Dell partner, said he is also confident that ultimately the deal will be completed.

"I am sure [Dell Chairman and CEO] Michael Dell will get this deal done," Goldstein told CRN. "He has the Wall Street connections and the confidence of investors. Look at everything he has done. I would never bet against Michael."

Customers are "excited" about the potential of the Dell EMC combination, Goldstein said.

"They are buying into the one stop end to end technology solution that Dell EMC will bring to the table," he said. "If you delve deep into the EMC portfolio, it is more than just storage. It is virtualization, security, document management. From a partner perspective with a single deal registration it is going to make it easier to do an end to end deal that runs from the desktop to the data center."

Dell in October said it plans to purchase EMC in a deal worth $67 billion. The deal is expected to close sometime this year.

Part of the deal includes paying EMC shareholders $24.05 per share in cash along with an as-yet unspecified amount of tracking stock in VMware, 80-plus percent of which is currently owned by EMC. However, EMC share prices have lost well over a quarter of their value since the planned acquisition was announced.

Even so, Dell and EMC are continuing forward as if the acquisition is a done deal. Michael Dell will be a keynote speaker at this year's EMC World in May. And David Goulden, CEO of EMC's Information Infrastructure business, this week told EMC employees the acquisition will give EMC the opportunity to take a long view of the storage market.

Steven Burke contributed to this story.