Date
Closed February 2011

Company Description
Compellent is a rapidly growing provider of highly-virtualized storage solutions with automated data management features, including tiering and thin provisioning, for enterprise and cloud-computing environments.

Situation Overview
Blackstone served as a financial advisor to Compellent's executive management team and Board in its sale to Dell for a total equity value of $955 million.

Transaction Summary
The acquisition enhances Dell’s data center footprint and strengthens its positioning in the rapidly evolving cloud computing ecosystem. The transaction also provides Dell’s customers with mid and high-end network storage solutions and bolsters Dell’s storage portfolio to offer customers innovative systems at every storage tier, from direct-attach to highly-virtualized SANs. The combination of Compellent’s modular SAN storage with Dell’s customer reach presents an opportunity to grow Compellent faster and across more verticals.