Broadcom's $61 billion deal for VMware on UK regulator's radar

Reuters

Published Nov 21, 2022 05:16AM ET

Updated Nov 21, 2022 11:49AM ET

(Reuters) -Britain's competition regulator said on Monday it was looking into whether U.S. chipmaker Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) Inc's $61 billion acquisition of cloud computing company VMware (NYSE:VMW) Inc may substantially lessen competition.

The Broadcom-VMware deal, announced in May, is the second biggest globally so far this year and marks Broadcom's attempt to diversify its business into enterprise software. The companies are also seeking European Union antitrust approval.

Tech deals have drawn intense scrutiny from regulators around the world on concerns of too much market power in the hands of a few and the possibility of bigger companies acquiring startups only to shut them down.