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

FILE PHOTO: A man stands near an IBM logo at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, February 25, 2019. REUTERS/Sergio Perez
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SERGIO PEREZ(Reuters)
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – U.S. tech giant International Business Machines Corp <IBM.N> on Thursday won unconditional EU antitrust approval for its $34 billion (27 billion pounds) acquisition of software company Red Hat <RHT.N>.
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.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Alissa de Carbonnel)