Update 07/08/2024 by Martijn van Best: The UK market competition authority also sees no objections to HPE’s acquisition of Juniper Networks. This clears the way a little more for the completion of the proposed 14 billion-dollar acquisition.
Although the full verdict is still pending, Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has already posted a preliminary conclusion online. The only bump in the road that may now hamper the deal is if the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) raises objections.
Original article 01/08/2024 by Erik van Klinken: The acquisition of Juniper Networks, announced in January, has now been approved by Brussels. The European Commission has officially announced that it has no objections to the 14 billion dollar deal.
When the acquisition was announced, we called it surprising, but it does make a lot of sense. After all, the existing HPE Aruba offering differs enough from Juniper’s to complement each other well. Among other things, Juniper’s Mist AI is generating interest and a strong presence among service providers.
All the checkmarks
Now, the European Commission notes that it has no problem with the acquisition. There would still be more than enough competition in the networking market, while HPE and Juniper were already close enough apart not to be the closest competitors to each other. This brings the deal into line with European competition policy, explained in detail by the European Commission here.
The decision by the CMA (Competitions & Markets Authority), the British competition authority, will follow later this month. In late June, that body announced it was launching an investigation into the proposed takeover. It is therefore still uncertain whether the deal will actually be completed by the end of 2024 or early 2025. Previously, significant acquisitions such as Broadcom’s incorporation of VMware and Activision Blizzard by Microsoft had to be postponed due to the lack of timely approval.
Also read: Juniper figures disappoint on eve of HPE acquisition