The UK Competitors and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched a proper “Part 1” investigation into Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) deliberate acquisition of Juniper Networks.
HPE introduced plans to amass Juniper Networks as early as January. The deal goals to unify the respective strengths of each events within the fields of networking and IT infrastructure, overlaying servers, storage, consulting, routing, switching and safety. As with nearly all large offers in the present day, the principle motivation behind the merger is, within the phrases of the corporate, “to speed up AI-driven innovation,” given the important function that cloud infrastructure performs within the booming synthetic intelligence motion.
On the time, HPE mentioned it will pay $40 per share, a 32% premium to the current closing value and a complete worth of $14 billion. There was all the time the chance {that a} deal of this dimension would entice some regulatory scrutiny, so the CMA mentioned it was within the early phases of assessing whether or not the deal would possibly “end in a major lessening of competitors inside any market or markets”.
The CMA is at present searching for feedback from related stakeholders, with a deadline of July 3.
