Pivotal filed a Form D last week with the SEC, indicating that last week’s $253 million round was actually closer to $653 million.
Where did the extra money come from? Well, existing investors EMC converted $400 million in debt to equity to account for the additional money recorded in the SEC form, according to a Pivotal spokesperson.
It’s actually quite interesting that EMC, which is in the midst of a $67 billion acquisition by Dell, would be so free with its cash ahead of finalizing the sale. Chances are, however that at this point Dell approved any move that EMC made in this regard.
Of course, further confusing the matter, Pivotal is jointly owned by EMC and VMware (along with GE and now Ford). EMC also owns 80 percent of VMware. So EMC increased its equity stake in Pivotal, when it owned a majority stake by virtue of its own investment and its ownership stake in VMware.
Regardless, all of these companies will become part of Dell when the acquisition is expected to be finalized later this year.
Just last week at EMC World Michael Dell announced new branding around the acquisition, with word that Pivotal would keep its independent status and its own brand. The $253 million investment last week led by Ford’s $182 million stake seemed pretty significant in itself.
Now we have EMC, one of the original investors that created Pivotal, converting $400 million in debt to equity. It’s certainly curious and begs the question why they are doing this.
Unfortunately, neither Pivotal nor EMC was willing to answer that question after a request to both companies for a comment.
