#5 Dell

Founder: Michael Dell

Percent voting share: 13.97 percent

Year founded: 1984

Dell traces its origins to 1984, when Michael Dell created PCs Limited while a student of the University of Texas at Austin. The dorm-room headquartered company sold IBM PC-compatible computers built from stock components. Dell dropped out of school to focus full-time on his fledgling business, after getting about $300,000 in expansion-capital from his family.

In 1985, the company produced the first computer of its own design, the Turbo PC, which sold for $795.  PCs Limited advertised its systems in national computer magazines for sale directly to consumers and custom assembled each ordered unit according to a selection of options. The company grossed more than $73 million in its first year of operation. By 2001, Dell became the largest computer systems provider in the world.

In 2004, Dell resigned as CEO but returned to the position in February 2007. But by then the company was already on to the downward spiral. Dell’s worldwide PC market share fell from 15.9 percent in 2006 to just 10.7 percent in 2012.

Consumers growing preferences for tablets and Smartphones, along with the stiff competition from rivals like HP and Lenovo, made the situation worse for company’s comeback. Adding to it, in 2010, the SEC fined Dell $100 million, and Michael Dell $4 million, alleging the company engaged in accounting fraud intended to mislead investors about its performance. On February 5, 2013 Dell reached a deal with a group of investors that included Michael Dell to go private for $24.4 billion, the largest leveraged buyout since the financial crisis, according to The New York Times.

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