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Dell's shares surge on report it's in talks to go private

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Shares of Dell Inc soared 13 percent to a near eight-month high on Monday after Bloomberg reported the world's No. 3 PC maker is in talks with at least two private equity firms about going private.

The discussions between the PC maker, which has steadily ceded market share to larger rival Hewlett Packard and China's Lenovo, and private equity are preliminary and financing has not been secured, Bloomberg cited two people with knowledge of the matter as saying.

Dell said it does not comment on rumors or speculation.

Like HP and Lenovo, Dell is grappling with dwindling demand for traditional desktop and laptop computers with the advent of tablets like Apple Inc's iPad. Sales of PCs over the holidays slid for the first time in more than five years, according to industry researcher IDC.

The company, now reinventing itself as a provider of computers and services to corporations and government agencies, saw shipments of computers plummet 21 percent in the fourth quarter, according to IDC. In the third quarter, its profit slid 47 percent.

Dell's fortunes have waxed and waned. In 2007, billionaire CEO Michael Dell - whose company was lauded as an early pioneer of just-in-time inventory management and online sales of custom-built computers -- returned to the company he founded to try and revive its business.

The company's market value stood at about $19 billion before Monday's rally. Michael Dell now owns more than 14 percent of the company, according to Thomson Reuters data, and last year was ranked the 22nd richest American with a fortune of $14.6 billion.

Dell's stock soared to an intra-day high of $12.83 in afternoon trade - the highest since May 2012 - after a brief trading suspension. It was recently up 13.3 percent at $12.33.

(Reporting By Poornima Gupta; Editing by Bernard Orr)

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