The U.K.’s antitrust authority has given the go-ahead to IBM’s planned multibillion acquisition of infrastructure software company HashiCorp.
In a brief case update published today, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it had “cleared the anticipated acquisition by IBM of HashiCorp,” and it would publish the full rationale for its decision in due course.
The announcement comes some 10 months after IBM first revealed it was doling out $6.4 billion for HashiCorp as it sought deeper inroads into the hybrid cloud realm — building on the $34 billion it paid for Red Hat in 2019, and $4.6 billion for Apptio in 2023.
IBM had indicated that it expected to close the HashiCorp deal by the end of 2024, but as is the case with such sizeable transactions — particularly those involving two publicly-traded companies — it was always likely to attract regulatory scrutiny. And so in December, the CMA launched an early “phase 1” investigation, inviting comment from key stakeholders.
While it was never certain to proceed to a full-blown investigation, it’s worth noting that the U.K. has been pushing to portray itself as a pro-tech, pro-growth nation of late — and this has meant changes at the CMA.
Last month, the government appointed a new CMA chairperson in the form of ex-Amazon executive Doug Gurr, a move that sparked a coalition of smaller tech firms and not-for-profits to pen an open letter expressing their concern at the CMA’s new direction.
Today’s decision is in line with those changes. The U.K. wants the world to know it doesn’t want to be a roadblock to business, which extends to deals of this nature involving companies headquartered elsewhere.
“The British government recently signalled that it wants the CMA to be more careful about intervening in international deals where there is no special U.K. issue,” Tom Smith, partner at London-based law firm Geradin Partners and former legal director at the CMA, told TechCrunch. “However, it’s not possible to know if the result in this case would have been different without that signal.”
The transaction isn’t over the line yet, though: the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the U.S. is also looking at the deal, though it has yet to make a formal announcement at the time of writing.
IBM declined to comment when contacted by TechCrunch.
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