Broadcom's acquisition of VMware has been postponed and subject to antitrust scrutiny around the world

On the morning of February 18, Beijing time, the deadline for chipmaker Broadcom's acquisition of cloud computing company VMware has been extended by 12 months, according to regulatory documents.

According to the original plan, the two companies expected the deal to be completed by May 26, 2023. But now the two sides have agreed to extend the deadline for completing the deal by one year.

Last May, Broadcom announced that it would buy VMware for about $61 billion. It is one of the largest technology deals in history and will make Broadcom a strong competitor in software.

But it has since been investigated by a number of regulators around the world, including the US, UK and EU. Among them, the EU plans to decide whether to approve the deal in June this year.

Although the deal has come under intense scrutiny, Chen Fuyang (Hock Tan), Broadcom CEO, said earlier this month that Broadcom would continue to pursue more mergers and acquisitions, including the acquisition of semiconductor companies.

Broadcom maintains a "select" list of "potential acquisition targets", he said. On this list, some are companies in the field of semiconductors, while others are in the field of software.

Before acquiring VMware, Broadcom had made several large mergers and acquisitions, including the acquisition of the enterprise security business of semiconductor company LSI, network technology maker Brocade, large software company CA and network security company Symantec.