Makers of Chip Gear Call Off $10 Billion Merger
Our government has taken a decided tilt against monopoly the past two years, I see that as a good thing in this age of gigamergers.
Two of the world’s largest manufacturers of the machinery used to produce semiconductors, Applied Materials of the United States and Tokyo Electron of Japan, on Monday dropped plans to merge after the Department of Justice said that combining their businesses would restrict competition.
The proposed $10 billion deal was announced in September 2013, but the companies had struggled to come up with a plan the American antitrust authorities would approve. It would have combined two of the three largest players in a sector crucial to the production of modern electronic devices, from smartphones to televisions.
If Applied Materials, the larger of the two companies, had been allowed to take over Tokyo Electron, it would have been the biggest acquisition of a Japanese corporation by an American company outside the financial industry.