戴爾落選《財富》美國500強 從51位跌落雲端內幕
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.
戴爾公司（Dell Inc）2012年在《財富》美國500強排名第44位，去年排名爲第51位，然而今年它卻跌出了榜單。事實上，這家公司在今年落榜之前已經連續十多年上榜。So, what happened?
那麼，到底發生了什麼事？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，戴爾公司創始人邁克爾o戴爾和私募股權投資公司銀湖投資集團（Silver Lake）完成了備受爭議的 250億美元戴爾私有化交易。通常，這樣的私營企業仍然有資格躋身財富500強（上榜的主要依據是每年的營收數據）因爲他們的債務公開交易，進而也會公佈財務業績。
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，正如我們在上個月所報道的，戴爾公司通過144a終身規則（Rule 144a for-life）進行了債券結構化，這項規則在私募股權基金支持的公司中越來越受到歡迎（儘管它對債券持有人設置了一些短期的流動性約束）。就《財富》美國500強方面而言，這意味着戴爾公司無須公開披露自己的財務狀況。相反，戴爾公司通過電話會議和在線數據室向債券持有人、未來債券持有人和某些分析師發佈季度數據，但前提是對外保密。Fortune did reach out to Dell when putting together the Fortune 500, but was rebuffed.
《財富》雜誌（Fortune）在編輯財富500強榜單時曾經試圖與戴爾公司進行溝通，但是遭到了回絕。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.
戴爾公司擁有龐大的債務，因此它可能會在某些時候公佈一些財務數據，但是現在還沒有。由於沒有獲得官方數據，戴爾沒能進入本年度的財富500強。
