Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE.US) spent $14 billion to acquire network communication equipment company Juniper Networks, and the deal is expected to receive unconditional antitrust approval from the European Union.
According to informed sources, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE.US) spent $14 billion to acquire network communication equipment company Juniper Networks, and the deal is expected to receive unconditional antitrust approval from the European Union.
The European Commission plans to make a decision on the transaction before August 1 local time.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced the deal in January this year, highlighting the urgency for companies to upgrade and develop new products amid the rapid growth of AI-driven services.
Since HP split into two companies (HP and HPE) in 2015, HPE has been focused on expanding its profit-rich business lines, such as high-performance computing and cloud computing services. However, the company has been struggling to achieve growth of more than approximately 2% in the past few years. In November, HPE gave lower-than-analyst-expected revenue forecasts after a sharp drop in server sales.
Juniper Networks and its larger competitor, Cisco (CSCO.US), produce network devices such as routers and switches. HPE CEO Neri said, "The merger of HPE and Juniper Networks will disrupt the entire industry because there has only been one large supplier, Cisco, and today we are actually creating a second option, a more modern option, which is what customers are ultimately looking for."