Last November, it was announced that IBM had agreed to acquire Red Hat for a whopping $34 Billion in what would be its biggest acquisition.
The US tech giant has now won unconditional European Union antitrust approval for this acquisition. Through this, the company aims to expand its subscription-based software offerings to counter falling software sales and declining demand for mainframe servers.
The European Commission said in a statement that it had concluded the transaction would raise no competition concerns.
IBM and Red Hat said that the acquisition deal would enable businesses to do even more work in the cloud, keeping their apps and data portable and secure, no matter which cloud or hybrid technologies they adopt. Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Lazard advised IBM on the Red Hat deal. Morgan Stanley and Guggenheim advised Red Hat. Following the acquisition, Red Hat will become a unit of IBM’s Hybrid Cloud division, with Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst joining IBM’s senior management, reporting directly to IBM CEO Ginni Rometty.