Broadcom CEO Hock Tan was in Brussels Friday, making his case for why the EU should not block his company’s VMware acquisition.
Broadcom announced a $61 billion deal to purchase VMware last May, almost immediately prompting scrutiny and concerns from regulators in the US and Europe. According to Reuters, Tan was in Brussels Friday to convince regulators that the deal is “pro-competitive.”
The proposed deal is one of the biggest in tech history and would give Broadcom control over critical software used by companies around the world. The UK and EU both launched investigations into the merger.
“Broadcom, a major supplier of hardware components, is acquiring VMware, a key server virtualisation software provider,” said Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy, in late 2022. “Our initial investigation has shown that it is essential for hardware components in servers to interoperate with VMware’s software. We are concerned that after the merger, Broadcom could prevent its hardware rivals to interoperate with VMware’s server virtualisation software. This would lead to higher prices, lower quality and less innovation for customers and consumers.”
With the UK recently blocking Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the current climate is definitely not in favor of the Broadcom/VMware deal moving forward.
