When public companies mimic private firms

IT was one of the biggest rebukes of the public markets in recent memory - and it may not be the last. In October, just two years after Dell's management took the company off the stock market to make it a private company, Dell announced one of the biggest technology acquisitions ever.

Being a publicly traded company is often thought crucial for raising large amounts of capital. But Michael S Dell, the founder and chief executive of the company, expects to raise as much as US$40 billion to finance its purchase of EMC, the data storage and software company.

Investors are also throwing money at companies that have never been on the public markets. Uber, the young ride-sharing company, has managed to raise US$8 billion without showing its books to the world, for instance.