Michael Dell has told those who are interested in such things that his moves to return Dell to the stock exchange were part of a cunning plan to simplify the business.

In an interview with CNBC, inside the New York Stock Exchange, Michael Dell (pictured) said the current structure is “too complicated” and the move will allow the firm to simplify the structure that currently sees its trade as a tracking stock related to VMware’s performance.

On Monday Dell Technologies announced that it would be relisted as a public company, with VMware remaining independent.

“We have an extraordinary business that’s doing incredibly well”, Dell’s Dell said.

“We brought together the best assets of the industry, we have invested heavily, we changed the trajectory considerably, and if you look at the original businesses that we started with, we’ve had 21 quarters in a row of growth and share in those businesses.

“In the last five years, a lot has changed. We have completely transformed the business, become the essential infrastructure company [and] really changed the profile nature of the company in terms of our capabilities.

“This is about simplifying our capital structure and exposing the value that we’ve created to shareholders.”

Dell is set to go public by the end of the year after rejecting a plan to merge with subsidiary VMware.

The vendor has announced plans to buy out holders of publicly listed DVMT stock – tracking stock that reflects the performance of VMware – using a mix of Dell stocks and cash. Dell has stressed that VMware itself is expected to be unaffected.

“VMware maintains its independence as a separate publicly traded company while Dell Technologies will continue to own 81 percent of VMware common stock”, said Dell in a statement.

This contradicts statements from Dell’s CEO and founder, who has often spoken publicly about the benefits the vendor reaped from going private in 2013. At the time, the deal cost Michael Dell and private equity house Silver Lake Partners $24.9 billion.

Since going private, Dell has invested heavily in expanding its business selling hardware, software, and services for data centres. In 2016, it paid a record-breaking $67 billion for the storage hardware giant EMC, including EMC’s stakes in business software companies VMware and Pivotal, which will remain independent. In filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Dell now describes itself as “a strategically aligned family of businesses”. One thing hasn’t changed: Founder and CEO Michael Dell owns a controlling stake in the company.

During a conference call, Dell CFO Tom Sweet said the deal will simplify the company’s ownership structure and “enable Dell Technologies to grow into an even stronger company”.

Dell is going public in a relatively strong position, says Craig Lowery, a research director at the industry analysis firm Gartner and former Dell executive. But there’s a good chance it won’t be in such a strong position in the future as cloud computing eats into its data centre business.