But that's the amazing part of the story. What happened wasn't in the interest of any of the middlemen involved! They just want to skim off their slice. The last thing they want is any whiff that the ultimate owner might not get their voting rights or might not get the money coming to them. That's the kind of thing that makes people take their business to the other middleman across the street.

The only people who really benefited from this mess were Michael Dell and the others on the other side of the buyout. And they had nothing to do with this clusterfuck.