In 2011, Dell bought a company called SecureWorks for $612 million and now it's officially spinning it off in an IPO.
Dell hasn't revealed in the SEC paperwork how much it hopes to earn from the IPO. Sources told the Wall Street Journal in October that Dell was hoping to raise $1 billion and would start its roadshow in December.
Dell CEO Michael Dell (and his family trust) essentially own SecureWorks himself, gaining it when he took Dell private in 2013. He controls 71%, the paperwork says. It didn't reveal whether he would be selling any of his stake as part of this IPO. Sources told the WSJ that he wasn't planning on it.
SecureWorks is a managed security service, meaning a cloud service that operates on a subscription model. It helps corporations monitor their IT infrastructure to protect against hackers and malware.
SecureWorks brought in $245,4 million in revenue in the first 9 months of its fiscal 2015 year (through October, 2015), up from $190,7 million in the same period last year.
It had a gross margin of $111.3 million for that 9-month period in 2015, but invested heavily, mostly in sales and marketing, and posted a net loss of $57.5 million.
Dell is looking for ways to shed business units and raise money in preparation for its massive $67 billion acquisition of EMC.
That's a complicated deal that involves complex financing and could put as much as $50 billion of debt on Dell's books.
This IPO is one of the things it is doing. It is also said to be looking to sell other parts of its business.
Dell is also reportedly looking for a buyer for its $5 billion outsourcing business, which it acquired in 2009 when it bought Perot Systems for $3.9 billion.
