戴尔落选《财富》美国500强 从51位跌落云端内幕
Dell Inc. is no longer a Fortune 500 company, despite ranking #51 last year and #44 in 2012. In fact, it has been in the mix for well over a decade before this year’s fall from rankings grace.
戴尔公司(Dell Inc)2012年在《财富》美国500强排名第44位,去年排名为第51位,然而今年它却跌出了榜单。事实上,这家公司在今年落榜之前已经连续十多年上榜。So, what happened?
那么,到底发生了什么事?Dell was taken private last October by company founder Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake in a contentious $25 billion transaction. Often such private companies still can qualify for the Fortune 500 — which largely relies on annual revenue data — because their debt is publicly-traded and, as such, the companies release financial performance.
去年10月,戴尔公司创始人迈克尔o戴尔和私募股权投资公司银湖投资集团(Silver Lake)完成了备受争议的 250亿美元戴尔私有化交易。通常,这样的私营企业仍然有资格跻身财富500强(上榜的主要依据是每年的营收数据)因为他们的债务公开交易,进而也会公布财务业绩。
But as we reported last month, Dell structured its bonds by using something called Rule 144a for-life, a technique that is growing in popularity among private equity-backed companies(despite creating some short-term liquidity constraints for bondholders). In terms of the Fortune 500, this means that Dell needn’t publicly-disclose its financials. Instead, bondholders, prospective bondholders and certain analysts are provided quarterly data via conference calls and an online data room, but only on a confidential basis.
但是,正如我们在上个月所报道的,戴尔公司通过144a终身规则(Rule 144a for-life)进行了债券结构化,这项规则在私募股权基金支持的公司中越来越受到欢迎(尽管它对债券持有人设置了一些短期的流动性约束)。就《财富》美国500强方面而言,这意味着戴尔公司无须公开披露自己的财务状况。相反,戴尔公司通过电话会议和在线数据室向债券持有人、未来债券持有人和某些分析师发布季度数据,但前提是对外保密。Fortune did reach out to Dell when putting together the Fortune 500, but was rebuffed.
《财富》杂志(Fortune)在编辑财富500强榜单时曾经试图与戴尔公司进行沟通,但是遭到了回绝。Dell has enough debt that some of its financials likely will leak at some point, but it hasn’t happened yet. And, without official figures, it’s out.
戴尔公司拥有庞大的债务,因此它可能会在某些时候公布一些财务数据,但是现在还没有。由于没有获得官方数据,戴尔没能进入本年度的财富500强。