Coming just days after a green signal from the EU, the latest approval paves the way for HPE to expand its presence in networking and ‘supercharge’ AI offerings.
The UK has approved Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) $14bn bid to acquire Juniper Networks after finding no competition concerns in an investigation.
Following a merger inquiry that began in June, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it has investigated and cleared the anticipated acquisition that was first announced in January.
At the time of the announcement, HPE said the acquisition was a way to “supercharge” its offerings in AI-native networking and for the two companies to strengthen their position in the growing AI sector.
But the CMA wanted to investigate whether the merger could lead to a “substantial lessening of competition” within markets in the UK. To that end, it began a ‘Phase 1’ investigation, an initial probe into the deal to see if it warrants a deeper investigation.
Based in Sunnyvale, California, Juniper develops networking technology products such as routers, switches, and network management and security software.
The company has been betting big on AI in recent years, and CEO Rami Rahim said in January – when the acquisition was first announced – that revenue from Juniper products that leverage AI had grown nearly 100pc year-over-year for the previous two quarters.
HPE, which resulted from a split in Hewlett Packard that separated its consumer and enterprise businesses, has been growing rapidly and making acquisitions across many segments of its business.
Once the deal is closed, Rahim will lead the combined HPE networking business and report directly to HPE president and CEO Antonio Neri.
Last week, the EU found that if the acquisition goes through, the merged entity’s market position would “remain moderate” in the wireless local area network (WLAN) equipment, the wireless access points and the Ethernet campus switches markets.
It argues that the merged entity would continue to face competition from a wide range of competitors, including strong and established players in each of the markets.
“Customers have a certain level of countervailing buyer power, allowing them to react in case of price increases of WLAN equipment and Ethernet campus switches,” the Commission wrote.
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