Computer maker Dell's offer of $30 a share for computer services
company Perot
Systems is the second time H Ross Perot has landed a
multi-billion dollar deal for a company he started from
scratch.
The Dell deal values the firm at about $3.9bn, a substantial
premium to the firm's $2.8bn sales for 2008. It will put Dell in
competition with IBM, HP and Cisco in the corporate computer
services market, provided two-thirds of the shareholders and the
anti-trust lawyers agree.
Ex-US marine, former IBM salesman and two-time presidential
hopeful Perot (79) started Perot Systems after he
sold his original company , Electronic Data Systems, (EDS) to
General Motors for $2.5bn in one of the first billion dollar
transactions in the computer industry, and one of the least
harmonious. EDS is now part of Hewlett-Packard.
Perot, who is frequently pictured on business magazines, was
renowned for running his companies with marine-like discipline. He
started EDS with a $1,000 loan from his wife, and over the next 22
years built it into a Fortune 1,000 company.
Short hair, good suits, shiny shoes and a penchant for getting
the job done on time and on budget were the order of the day,
attracting some of the US's top user companies, as well as US
Department of Defense customers.
Perot also had a colourful extra-mural life. From 1969 to 1972
he worked to get American POWs out of Southeast Asia, and in 1979
took part in a
private mission to rescue two EDS staff held hostage in
Iran.
He is the only business personality to win the Winston Churchill
Award. He was also the first recipient of the Raoul Wallenberg
Award, named after the Swedish diplomat who saved more than 100,000
Hungarian Jews from the Nazis during World War II.
A member of the American National Business Hall of Fame, he also
holds the Sarnoff Award for contributions to the electronics
industry, the Smithsonian ComputerWorld Award for his contributions
to the computer industry, and in 2004 MSNBC.com named him as one of
history's 10 greatest entrepreneurs.