Reuters – U.S. chipmaker Broadcom Inc is reportedly close to receiving conditional approval from the European Union for its acquisition of cloud computing company VMware, multiple sources familiar with the matter said today.
In May 2022, Broadcom announced it would acquire VMware for about $61 billion in one of the largest technology deals ever. It was subsequently investigated by a number of regulators around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union.
In April, the European Commission, the EU’s antitrust regulator, publicly opposed the deal, saying it would block it unless adequate remedies were available. Broadcom subsequently proposed remedies to address the EU’s concerns.
Sources familiar with the matter said today that the European Commission’s eventual approval of the deal would depend largely on the interoperability remedies Broadcom would provide to its competitors. In response, the European Commission and Broadcom declined to comment.
The EU is scheduled to make a final decision by July 17.
One of the people familiar with the matter said that one of Broadcom’s proposed remedies focuses on “Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters” (FC HBAs) and primarily addresses the concerns of rival Marvell Technology. Marvell Technology has not yet commented.
Broadcom primarily supplies chips for data center networking, as well as proprietary chips to power artificial intelligence (AI) efforts. The VMware acquisition comes on the heels of several large M&A deals, including acquisitions of semiconductor company LSI, networking technology maker Brocade, major software company CA and cybersecurity company Symantec’s enterprise security business.
