Regulators are suspicious of Broadcom’s proposed $61 billion acquisition of VMware
Back in 2019, the industry giant was willing to take over its competitor Qualcomm, but to no avail
Broadcom, the US manufacturer and global supplier of semiconductor and infrastructure software products, has recently announced its plans to acquire VMware, the Palo Alto-based cloud computing and virtualisation technology. While VMware’s shareholders have given their greenlight to the deal that may become the largest tech acquisition deal to date, there has been opposition from legislators on both sides of the pond.
The first concerns were raised by the American Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that last month progressed its investigation into a deeper second review phase.
This was followed by suspicion from the European Commission (EC) that was also reported to proceed with an investigation. In order to make matters more complex, the British competition watchdog – UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) – has just announced that it plans to initiate an investigation into Broadcom’s deal.
Despite the trouble, Broadcom can’t say that it was ill-prepared. Upon the announcement of the deal, it said that the hypothetical end date is October 2023, meaning that the company had factored in the extensive legal interest in the nuances and prospects of the deal.
This is Broadcom’s second ambitious venture. Previously, in 2018, the company attempted to initiate an acquisition of its rival Qualcomm for $130 billion, however, this idea was ultimately ditched following an intervention by President Trump.
