Proposed $24.4B sale looms over Dell's earnings

Southeastern maintains Dell is worth $23.72 per share. T. Rowe Price hasn't publicly shared its appraisal of the company. At least one analyst thinks Michael Dell and his investors will need to raise their offer to $15 per share to win over shareholders, although the company maintains it the current bid is fair.

The company's conference call to discuss the quarterly earnings will mark Michael Dell's first public remarks since the terms of the sale were announced.

Michael Dell already has been trying to boost the company's revenue by expanding into more lucrative niches such as business software and technology consulting while also trying to develop an attractive line of tablet computers to compete against Apple Inc.'s trend-setting iPad.

WHY IT MATTERS: Despite its struggles, Dell remains one of the world's biggest and best-known technology companies whose products and services are still widely used. The company's proposed sale and brewing shareholder rebellion against it will also affect the values of millions of stock portfolios.

WHAT'S EXPECTED: After subtracting certain accounting charges, analysts polled by FactSet predict the company will earn 39 cents per share on revenue of $14.1 billion.

LAST YEAR'S QUARTER: HP earned $764 million, or 43 cents per share, on revenue of $16 billion. If not for certain accounting charges, Dell would have earned 51 cents per share during this period.