Dell CEO Michael Dell.  Photograph by Jordan Curet/Fortune Brainstorm Tech, under Creative Commons license

Tech giant Dell Technologies is considering among other options spinning off its roughly $50 billion stake in cloud computing company VMware in order to help bolster its share price, the Wall Street Journal [paywall] reports. According to the Journal, Dell recently kicked off a process to examine the possibility of unloading its VMware’s stake or taking other steps that could include purchasing the rest of VMware shares that it doesn’t own. Dell and VMware are currently working with advisers on a possible deal.

Dell got hold of its huge stake in VMware after taking over storage hardware maker EMC in 2016. The company tapped significant debt to fund a $67 billion acquisition of EMC and having paid down some of it currently has a debt load of $48 billion. A VMware stake spin-off could be structured to reduce that debt load.

Dell currently has a market value hovering about $38 billion (as of writing) despite having a roughly $50 billion stake in VMware in addition to its core businesses. It seems the market is assigning little worth to Dell’s core PC and data storage business and the company may be looking to separate its VMware asset in order to better highlight the value of its own business. In 2019, Dell reported $92 billion in revenues.

Dell was taken private in 2013 but returned to the public markets five years later. Since its return, the company’s share price has hardly changed, presumably displeasing shareholders. Dell then exploring ways to boost its share price shouldn’t seem at all startling.