Broadcom gets UK approval for $61B VMware acquisition

Chip designer Broadcom said today that it expects its $61 billion acquisition of cloud company VMware to close on October 30 this year, following the final approval of the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority.

This follows legal clearance for the merger in the European Union, as well as in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel, South Africa and Taiwan. Regulators in China and the United States remain the last obstacles to the deal going through.

Broadcom said that in the U.S., the Hart-Scott-Rodino pre-merger waiting periods have expired, and there is no legal impediment to closing under U.S. merger regulations.

New Street Research’s Blair Levin previously told Silverlinings that European courts are “tougher on antitrust than American courts."

Broadcom said it is in the “advanced stages” of obtaining the remaining required regulatory approvals, which which the company expects will be received before October 30, 2023.

Broadcom CEO Hock Tan has said that the deal will “empower our customers to modernize and architect their IT infrastructure” with the combination of Broadcom silicon and infrastructure software with VMware’s cloud and multi-cloud portfolio.

There are already lots of reports and rumors flying about layoffs to follow the closure of the VMware deal as Broadcom consolidates departments at VMware.

Read up on our previous coverage of the merger and let’s see what happens come the end of October.