Dell is in talks with two private equity firms to go private, Bloomberg News reports.

Hit the Shops! Stores planning to open early on Black Friday

Divine Intervention: Pipeline Fellowship adds three angels to its program

Power Play: Pension funds take control

Back to the Future: Singapore-based Time Voyager travels through time and attracts Chinese VC funding

Tokyo is Hot: City of the rising sun is a top target for private equity

It’s all Happening Down Under: 2011 on track to be the biggest year since the 2006 peak for Australian private equity

Looking Good: Kayak revenues and profits increasing; now it just needs markets to improve for an IPO

Feel the Pain: Asian businesses brace themselves for shrinking of the funding markets

Admin Sorted: It’s SunGard’s Investran for Ogier Fund Services

Boost for Women’s Health: Osteoporosis and women’s health biotech company Radius Health closes second tranche of funding

Market volatility may have slowed down M&A but there still are some bright spots.

So far in 2011 there have been 503 U.S. announced mergers that are private equity backed. These deals are valued at$77.5 billion, which compares to the 632 deals for all of 2010 that totaled $69.34 billion, Dealogic says. Transaction values, according to the data, are up 12%.

However, these totals don’t include the mammoth Kinder Morgan deal. Kinder Morgan agreed to buy El Paso Corp. for about $38 billion, including debt, earlier this month. CORRECTED: The Carlyle Group, and Goldman Sachs Inc.’s buyout arm, Highstar Capital, along with Riverstone Holdings, bought Kinder Morgan in 2007. Kinder Morgan went public earlier this year but the PE firms still hold stakes.

Today’s hot rumor has nothing to do with private equity. Well, at least not yet.

I’m hearing that Savvis, the information tech services provider, has hired Qatalyst Partners, three sources say. Savvis, which denied in January that it was in sales talks, is now in discussions with some anonymous parties, one person says.

Another source says that Qatalyst’s hiring isn’t “definitive.”

The pending – and pending, and pending – $15 billion buyout of Fidelity National may restart an old private equity love affair with financial technology companies.

Financial technology, or fintech, includes everything from processing companies to stock exchanges. It includes the companies that make all the software that moves the modern financial system. It is one of those sectors that private equity lavished money on this decade, as technology fueled the globalization of finance. Think bank processing deals, like First Data ($29b), Sungard ($11.3b) and Ceridian ($5.3b).

These processing and outsourcing companies have the one thing that private equity cannot resist: Regular revenue streams and strong cash flow, even in recessions. Portfolio companies need cash flow to pay off their LBO-incurred debt, and there are few other sectors who can promise that kind of regularity.

SunGard Data Systems Inc. has acquired Performance Pathways Inc., a Mechanicsburg, Penn.-based provider of instructional management software for K-12 school districts. No financial terms were disclosed. SunGard was acquired for $11.4 billion in 2005 by Bain Capital, Blackstone Group, GS Capital Partners, KKR, Providence Equity Partners, Silver Lake Partners and TPG Capital.

SunGard Data Systems Inc. has completed its $585.3 million acquisition of a majority interest in trading software company GL Trade (Paris: GLT). SunGard was acquired for $11.4 billion in 2005 by Bain Capital, Blackstone Group, GS Capital Partners, KKR, Providence Equity Partners, Silver Lake Partners and TPG Capital.