A company logo of Dell is seen on the cover of its laptop at a Dell outlet in Hong Kong October October 21, 2009.

NEW YORK | Fri Mar 15, 2013 9:34pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Private equity firm Silver Lake Partners bid as low as $11.22 per share for Dell Inc in mid 2012, when it first discussed a buyout with founder and CEO Michael Dell, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Since then, on February 5 this year, Silver Lake and Michael Dell raised their bid to take the world's No. 3 personal computer maker private to $13.65 a share. At $24.4 billion, it would be the largest private equity-led buyout since the 2008 financial crisis.

When the bid was first announced, the price represented a 25 per cent premium over the stock price before news of the bid, but Dell's share price closed at $14.31 on Friday.

The computer maker has said repeatedly that the bid comes only after extensive review and negotiations, and has deemed it fair to shareholders and that view will likely be emphasized again in an upcoming proxy filing with the SEC.

But some analysts say Michael Dell and Silver Lake may eventually raise their bid to try to appease investors in Dell like Southeastern who complain it undervalues the company.

Michael Dell is trying to complete his company's transition from a low-margin PC maker into a provider of computing services. The makeover has become more urgent as the PC market shrinks. Analysts say it might best be carried out if the company were taken private, away from public shareholder pressure and scrutiny.

BID DISCUSSIONS GO BACK TO MID-2012

CNBC first reported the opening bid and, according to the business television network, private equity house KKR & Co LP had also discussed a bid for Dell at $12 to $13 a share but dropped that offer in December last year.

Several major shareholders voiced opposition to the bid including Southeastern Asset Management and T. Rowe Price.

A second person familiar with the matter told Reuters that Southeastern, Dell's largest independent shareholder, had itself broached the possibility of a leveraged buyout to Michael Dell in the summer of 2012, when it expressed interest in contributing its equity in Dell toward any deal.

But two other sources familiar with Southeastern's thinking told Reuters the firm had not touched on any sort of private equity-led buyout deal during talks with Michael Dell last summer.

These sources said Southeastern proposed a transaction similar to one it outlined on February 8 in a letter to the board, when it outlined a so-called "Dutch auction" or tender offer to all shareholders, the two sources added.

Southeastern's objection to the current bid, like that of many other investors, is that the buyout as it stands severely undervalues the corporation.

All sources asked not to be named because the matter is not public. Dell did not respond to requests for comment and Southeastern declined to comment.

A clearer picture of the negotiations leading up to the deal is expected to emerge in the last week of March in a company proxy filing.

(Reporting By Greg Roumeliotis, Soyoung Kim and Nadia Damouni in New York; editing by Clive McKeef)

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Tourists take pictures of a NASA sign at the Kennedy Space Center visitors complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida April 14, 2010.

PASADENA, California (Reuters) - PASADENA | Fri Aug 3, 2012 8:04pm EDT

PASADENA, California (Reuters) - PASADENA Calif. Aug 3 (Reuters) - NASA will pay more than $1 billion over the next 21 months to three companies to develop commercial spaceships capable of flying astronauts to the International Space Station, the agency said Friday.

The lion's share of the $1.1 billion allotted for the next phase of NASA's so-called ?"Commercial Crew" program will be split between Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies, a privately held firm run by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk.

Boeing will receive $460 million to continue developing its CST-100 capsule, which is intended to fly aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. ULA is a partnership of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, was awarded $440 million to upgrade its Dragon cargo capsule, which flies on the firm's Falcon 9 rocket, to carry people.

In May, a Dragon capsule became the first privately owned spacecraft to reach the station, a $100 billion outpost that flies 240 miles above Earth. The test flight was part of a related NASA program to hire commercial companies to fly cargo to the station.

Privately held Sierra Nevada Corp received a partial award of $212.5 million for work on its Dream Chaser, a winged vehicle that resembles a miniature space shuttle which also launches on an Atlas 5 rocket.

All three firms are prior recipients of NASA space taxi development work. The new awards will more than triple NASA's investments in commercial crew programs, which so far total $365 million.

Unlike previous NASA development programs, costs are shared between the government and its selected partners.

"?The companies also are bringing money to the table. This is a way of allowing the United States to lead in the development of new space systems that are human-capability and then taking those systems for commercial purposes, as well as for NASA purposes in the future," program manager Ed Mango said.

Since the space shuttles were retired last year, NASA is dependent on partners Russia, Europe and Japan to reach the station. Russia will remain the sole entity capable of flying crew until U.S. companies develop systems, which NASA hopes will be within five years.

Shut out of the competition was Alliant Techsystems which hoped to parlay an ongoing unfunded NASA partnership agreement into a paying contract.

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos's startup Blue Origin, which won $25.7 million during two predecessor programs, did not bid for the integrated design contracts awarded Friday.

Three other firms - Space Operations, American Aerospace and Space Design - submitted proposals but were eliminated for not meeting requirements, NASA's associate administrator for space operations Bill Gerstenmaier said during a conference call with reporters.

(Irene.Klotz@thomsonreuters.com)

(Editing by Vicki Allen)

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