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Chipmaker Broadcom has completed its $69bn acquisition of VMware in one of the largest tech sector acquisitions in recent times.
The deal has faced significant scrutiny from global regulators, including the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which carried out an investigation into the merger.
VMware is a US cloud computing and virtualisation technology firm, while Broadcom is a mass supplier of computer chips often used in internet infrastructure such as data centres and broadband. With both firms headquartered in California, there were concerns that the deal could be held up by Chinese regulators because of tense relations with the US.
But China finally gave the green light for the merger to go ahead earlier this week, paving the way for the deal to go ahead.
To complete the deal, Broadcom also had to satisfy regulators in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the EU, Israel, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan and the UK that the deal would not adversely affect competition in the sector.
The firms plan to combine their expertise to create cloud-based environments that allow users to run apps anywhere and on any device.
“We are excited to welcome VMware to Broadcom and bring together our engineering-first, innovation-centric teams as we take another important step forward in building the world’s leading infrastructure technology company,” said Hock Tan, CEO of Broadcom.
“With a shared focus on customer success, together we are well positioned to enable global enterprises to embrace private and hybrid cloud environments, making them more secure and resilient. Broadcom has a long track record of investing in the businesses we acquire to drive sustainable growth, and that will continue with VMware for the benefit of the stakeholders we serve.”
The deal is the largest since Microsoft cleared its takeover of gaming giant Activision in October, which makes the massively successful Call of Duty franchise among other games.
To complete the purchase, it too had to appease a broad array of global regulators, and ended up selling Activision’s cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft in order for the CMA to let the deal go ahead.
