UK competition regulator looking at Broadcom’s $61B acquisition of VMware
The United Kingdom’s competition regulator said Monday that it was looking into whether chipmaker Broadcom’s $61 billion acquisition of cloud computing company VMware would reduce competition.
The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened a preliminary inquiry into the transaction. It follows a decision by the European Commission (EC) earlier this month to investigate with the transaction.
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last month also moved ahead with a more stringent “second request” review of the deal.
If they progress, the regulatory probes have the potential to prevent Broadcom from closing its acquisition of the cloud computing company.
Broadcom, however, has argued that VMware’s multi-cloud management tools combined with Broadcom’s semiconductor and infrastructure software products could increase choice and innovation within the cloud computing market.
“We look forward to working with the Competition and Markets Authority throughout its process. We are confident that this deal does not present any competition issues,” Broadcom said in a statement to TechCrunch. “We are making progress with our various regulatory filings around the world and expect the transaction to be completed in Broadcom’s fiscal year 2023.”
Broadcom previously had another major deal scuttled in 2018, when its plan to acquire rival Qualcomm for $130 billion was ultimately blocked by the Trump administration, which cited national security concerns.
The U.K.’s CMA is inviting comments from the public by Dec. 6 to help it with an assessment on whether to formally launch an investigation into the Broadcom-VMware deal.
