IBM gains unconditional EU approval for $34 b Red Hat deal

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. tech giant International Business Machines Corp on Thursday won unconditional EU antitrust approval for its $34 billion acquisition of software company Red Hat.

A man stands near an IBM logo at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, February 25, 2019. REUTERS

IBM is looking to the deal, its biggest to date, 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. Reuters reported on June 19 that the deal would get the go-ahead.