--- title: "Michael Dell's family fund paid an 11.6% premium for SK hynix's parent the day before Barclays cut Dell" description: "A fund managing Michael Dell's family assets agreed on October 13 to buy 1.34% of SK Inc., the holding company above memory maker SK hynix, from chairman Chey Tae-won at an 11.6% premium. A day later Barclays downgraded Dell and the stock fell 11%, the bank calling its revenue memory-cost passthrough; Michael Dell calls the shortage a possible four-year problem." publisher: "The Inference" section: "Markets" published: 2026-10-18T18:19:47.601Z modified: 2026-10-18T18:19:47.601Z canonical: https://theinference.org/article/michael-dell-s-family-fund-paid-an-11-6-premium-for-sk-hynix-s-parent-the-day-before-barclays-cut-dell language: en keywords: "Dell Technologies, SK hynix, Memory, Semiconductors, M&A" --- # Michael Dell's family fund paid an 11.6% premium for SK hynix's parent the day before Barclays cut Dell > A fund managing Michael Dell's family assets agreed on October 13 to buy 1.34% of SK Inc., the holding company above memory maker SK hynix, from chairman Chey Tae-won at an 11.6% premium. A day later Barclays downgraded Dell and the stock fell 11%, the bank calling its revenue memory-cost passthrough; Michael Dell calls the shortage a possible four-year problem. ## A Seoul filing names the Dell family as the buyer SK Inc.'s [large-shareholding report, filed October 13](https://en.sedaily.com/finance/2026/10/15/michael-dells-family-fund-buys-sk-stake-from-chey-tae-won), showed DFO Public Investments, a Delaware fund run by DFO Management, the family office of Dell founder Michael Dell, agreeing to buy 972,493 shares, a 1.34% stake [1], from group chairman Chey Tae-won for 544 billion won, [about $406 million](https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/sk-group-chairman-chey-sells-stake-to-dell-family-office-fund-for-406-million/ar-AA2eek0e) [2]. The price works out to 559,387 won a share, an 11.6% premium to the October 13 close, and the block trade, a single negotiated sale, settles on November 2 [3]. Chey is raising 944 billion won in total to pay a [court-ordered divorce settlement](https://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=278834) [2][3]. The stake sits on the chain the money is about: [SK hynix](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/sk-hynix) makes the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) that [Nvidia](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/nvidia) pairs with its AI processors, and Dell assembles the finished racks [1]. In June, Dell shipped the industry's first rack carrying 72 of Nvidia's Vera Rubin chips to [CoreWeave](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/coreweave), a US cloud operator, fitted with SK hynix's sixth-generation HBM4 [1]. ## The banks call Dell's revenue a memory story On October 14, [Barclays downgraded Dell, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and NetApp to Equal Weight](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/14/dell-stock-barclays-enterprise-ai.html), the bank's neutral rating, arguing that strong enterprise revenues are "[more of a function of memory costs than a move to enterprise AI](https://theinference.org/article/barclays-cuts-dell-hpe-and-netapp-calling-the-ai-hardware-boom-a-memory-price-cycle)" [4]. Dell fell 11% that day, cutting short a run of more than 300% for the year [4]. The bank found businesses put about 5% of IT budgets into AI, with only about a quarter of that reaching hardware [4]. [Morgan Stanley's October survey of chief information officers](https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/dell-leads-cio-spending-plans-as-hardware-prices-jump) agrees from another direction: server prices are up about 14% year over year, 43% of CIOs have moved some 2027 server spending into 2026, and 72% expect server budgets to flatten or decline by 2028 [5]. Dell still tops the bank's three-year net spending plans, at 31% against [HPE](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/hewlett-packard-enterprise)'s 28% [5]. *Chart: **Dell still tops CIO hardware spending plans while the banks doubt the demand beneath them** Bar chart of net three-year spending intention by hardware vendor: Dell 31%, HPE 28%, Pure Storage 22%, NetApp 18%, IBM 13%, HP Inc. 13%, Logitech minus 2%* *Net spending intention: CIOs expecting to spend more with a vendor over three years minus those expecting to spend less, Morgan Stanley October 2026 CIO survey, in percent. Source: TheStreet. [5]* Even the downgrade carries a bull number: [Barclays](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/barclays) analyst Tim Long still expects Dell's AI server revenue to triple to $75 billion this fiscal year, at an operating margin near 5% [6]. That frames the holder's question after an 11% one-day drop: is the revenue memory passthrough that normalizes, or the enterprise wave Michael Dell says is just beginning [4][6]? ## Michael Dell's four-year answer "Maybe it's a four-year problem because there's just not enough supply," Michael Dell [told CNBC on October 13](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/michael-dell-warns-memory-shortage-173021227.html), adding that the squeeze worsens in 2027 and that new fabs need about four years to reach full capacity, in 2029 or 2030 [6][7]. Dell exited the July quarter with a record $95 billion backlog of AI and enterprise servers, built on [$60.9 billion of orders in three months](https://www.msn.com/en-us/technology/tech-companies/dell-booked-more-ai-server-orders-in-3-months-than-it-recorded-in-total-revenue/ar-AA2c5P2e), against $47 billion of total revenue [8]. It buys DRAM memory only when assembly is scheduled and holds long-term supply agreements like Samsung's and SK hynix's, to protect working capital [7]. *Chart: **Dell's quarterly revenue has doubled in two years, to $47 billion** Line chart of Dell's quarterly revenue from Q3 2023 to Q2 2026, rising from about $22 billion to nearly $47 billion* *Dell Technologies quarterly revenue by fiscal quarter, in billions of US dollars, from its SEC filings. [9]* ## No motive is stated; the premium is the tell The counterpoints are real: the buyer is the family fund, not [Dell Technologies](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/dell-technologies); an SK official said the company had no information on the chairman's trade; and the Korea Corporate Governance Forum, an independent watchdog, says Chey and the fund must disclose as joint holders if they agreed to vote together [2][3]. Nothing in the filing states a motive. The 11.6% premium is still the tell: the family paid above the market price for the scarce input its own company says it cannot get enough of. Three readings decide it: the trade settles November 2 [3]; market-research firm TrendForce expects fourth-quarter DRAM contract prices up another 10% to 15% [5]; and Dell's next report shows whether a $95 billion backlog converts on top of $21.3 billion of stockpiled inventory [8]. If memory prices normalize, the pull-forward deflates. If the shortage runs to 2030, the family bought the scarce end of the chain. ## Takeaway Michael Dell's family fund paid an 11.6% premium for a piece of the company that owns SK hynix the day before Barclays downgraded Dell on memory-cost passthrough; whether the premium was foresight or sentiment comes down to whether the memory shortage runs to 2030 or normalizes first. ## Sources 1. [Seoul Economic Daily, "Michael Dell's Family Fund Buys SK Stake From Chey Tae-won", 15 October 2026](https://en.sedaily.com/finance/2026/10/15/michael-dells-family-fund-buys-sk-stake-from-chey-tae-won) 2. [Reuters (via MSN), "SK Group chairman Chey sells stake to Dell family office fund for $406 million", 14 October 2026](https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/sk-group-chairman-chey-sells-stake-to-dell-family-office-fund-for-406-million/ar-AA2eek0e) 3. [BusinessKorea, "Chey Taps Michael Dell's Family Fund in 944B Won Divorce Funding Plan", 15 October 2026](https://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=278834) 4. [CNBC, "Dell stock plunges 11%, leading data center sell-off as fears mount about 'enterprise AI timing'", 14 October 2026](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/14/dell-stock-barclays-enterprise-ai.html) 5. [TheStreet, "Dell leads CIO spending plans as hardware prices jump", 14 October 2026](https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/dell-leads-cio-spending-plans-as-hardware-prices-jump) 6. [Benzinga (via Yahoo Finance), "Michael Dell Warns Memory Shortage Could Be a 'Four-Year Problem'", 16 October 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/michael-dell-warns-memory-shortage-173021227.html) 7. [Wccftech, "Michael Dell Predicts The Memory Shortage Is Only 'Gonna Get Worse' In 2027", 18 October 2026](https://wccftech.com/michael-dell-memory-shortage-ai-servers-gonna-get-worse-dell-stock/) 8. [The Motley Fool (via MSN), "Dell booked more AI server orders in 3 months than it recorded in total revenue", 11 September 2026](https://www.msn.com/en-us/technology/tech-companies/dell-booked-more-ai-server-orders-in-3-months-than-it-recorded-in-total-revenue/ar-AA2c5P2e) 9. [Dell Technologies, quarterly figures from its SEC filings, retrieved 18 October 2026](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001571996) --- Michael Dell's family fund paid an 11.6% premium for SK hynix's parent the day before Barclays cut Dell — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/michael-dell-s-family-fund-paid-an-11-6-premium-for-sk-hynix-s-parent-the-day-before-barclays-cut-dell