HPE’s planned $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks has won crucial clearances from two European antitrust regulatory bodies.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which began a Phase 1 inquiry into the acquisition in June, announced today that it has cleared the anticipated acquisition, adding it will publish the full text of its decision shortly.
Last week, the EU Commission gave its approval to the deal, saying it found the acquisition would not significantly reduce competition in the markets for wireless local area network gear and access points, ethernet campus switches and data center switches.
The intended deal, scheduled to be completed by early next year, was announces last January. At that time, HPE said its all-cash purchase of the AI-native networks company is expected to double HPE’s networking business.
“The explosion of AI and hybrid cloud-driven business is accelerating demand for secure, unified technology solutions that connect, protect, and analyze companies’ data from edge to cloud,” HPE said. “These trends, and AI specifically, will continue to be the most disruptive workloads for companies, and HPE has been aligning its portfolio to capitalize on these substantial IT trends with networking as a critical connective component.”
Upon completion of the transaction, Juniper CEO Rami Rahim will lead the combined HPE networking business, reporting to HPE President and CEO Antonio Neri.
Juniper, based in Sunnyvale, CA, was founded in 1996 and reported 2023 revenues of $5.6 billion.
