broadcom It would about to obtain authorization from the European Union to buy VMware, as they advance in Bloomberg. The officials in charge of the review of the merger operation in the EU will thus pave the way for the operation to move forward and close the largest acquisition operation carried out to date by a semiconductor manufacturer.
The European Commission is expected to approve the transaction in just a few hours, ending months of negotiations with both companies. During these negotiations, Broadcom has agreed to several behavioral measures, including a promise to import interoperability standards into its technologies, which will allow its rivals to compete more fairly.
VMware shares rose 7.6% after the news broke, bringing the company to its highest price since October 2021. Neither company has made any statements about this important step for their merger, after months of facing an exhaustive scrutiny of the purchase process, and the European Commission pointing out in April several reasons that could potentially have led the EU to block the deal unless action was taken.
In addition, the Commission warned that the operation could lead to business customers of both companies, as well as other rivals, paying “higher prices for lower quality and less innovation«.
As to the UK Markets and Competition Authoritywill make public its provisional data on the Broadcom deal due later this month. Therefore, the deadline for doing so will be anticipated by more than a month: next September 12. It must be borne in mind that the British regulatory authorities are the ones that have adopted a tougher stance in relation to the promises made by companies that want to buy others about their behavior once the operation is closed, as demonstrated by the veto they have imposed on Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard.
