After securing regulatory approval in China, Broadcom has finally concluded its $69 billion acquisition of cloud-computing company VMware.
The massive deal was announced in May 2022 and is part of CEO Hock Tan’s cunning plan to enhance Broadcom’s software business.
It was not plain sailing as the acquisition encountered significant regulatory hurdles worldwide, leading to three postponements of the closing date. The last was China’s regulatory green light, which has been signed off despite the controversy over US-China chip restrictions.
The European Commission approved after Broadcom proposed remedies to address issues related to rival Marvell Technology. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority approved following a thorough investigation.
Hock Tan said he was thrilled to announce Broadcom’s successful acquisition of VMware, which he thought was the start of a new and exciting era for all of us at the company.
“VMware joins our engineering-first, innovation-centric team, which is another important step forward in building the world’s leading infrastructure technology company,” he said.
Analysts suggest that the successful closure of the Broadcom-VMware deal might set a positive precedent for other transactions in the market. Cabot Henderson, a market strategist at JonesTrading, noted that while the blessings received by Activision Blizzard and VMware are encouraging, it remains uncertain if other boards will follow suit.
