IBM’s $6.4B HashiCorp acquisition cleared by UK

image via TechCrunch

February 25, 2025, 3:31 PM

• •The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has cleared IBM’s planned $6.4 billion acquisition of HashiCorp.
• •The transaction is still subject to review by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
• •IBM declined to comment when contacted by TechCrunch.

The U.K.’s antitrust authority has given the go-ahead to IBM’s planned multibillion acquisition of infrastructure software company HashiCorp. 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.

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