Core Viewpoint - The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has approved IBM's 6.4 billion as part of its strategy to enhance its presence in the hybrid cloud market, following previous acquisitions including Red Hat for 4.6 billion in 2018 [2][3]. - The CMA's approval comes after a "phase 1" investigation initiated in December, which involved gathering comments from key stakeholders [3]. Group 2: Regulatory Environment - The U.K. government has recently appointed Doug Gurr, a former Amazon executive, as the new CMA chairperson, reflecting a shift towards a more favorable stance on technology acquisitions [4]. - The U.K. aims to position itself as a pro-growth nation, signaling that it does not intend to obstruct significant deals involving foreign companies [5]. Group 3: Ongoing Regulatory Scrutiny - Although the CMA has cleared the acquisition, the deal is still subject to review by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has not yet made a formal announcement regarding its stance [5].
IBM's $6.4B HashiCorp acquisition cleared by UK