No antitrust problems around the corner

Sep 20, 2007 14:44 GMT  ·  By

Almost a month ago the Asian computer manufacturing company Acer publicly announced its plan to acquire the American system integrator Gateway for a sum of $710 million and after some legal problems with Gateway's investors the deal is one step closer to completion now.

According to the news site computerworld, Gateway reported that the American antitrust authorities gave the acquisition a green light after the end of the 30-day waiting time frame in which the United States Federal Trade Commission or the specialized body of the Department of Justice could intervene or request additional data in order to clarify different aspects of the said deal.

While not all transactions are subject to scrutiny from the said state antitrust authorities, because of the size of the said deal, Acer and Gateway were asked to provide a number of details pertaining the merging of the two companies. "The closing of the transaction remains subject to other customary conditions, including regulatory approvals in other jurisdictions, which [Acer] anticipates will be satisfied over the next several weeks," Gateway said in a public statement. The next big problem that the Acer acquisition program will encounter is the lawsuit filed against Gateway by a number of major investors which are unhappy with the deal as they think that their company was purchased at a lower than real price.

This merging between Acer and Gateway which was started back in August, will promote the Asian company to the very top of the most important computer manufacturers as Acer will become the number three vendor in the whole world. It is considered that after the number of shipped computer systems and after the deal between the two companies closes, Acer will top at around 20 million desktop and mobile computer systems. While the lawsuit against the board of directors from Gateway is still on the roll from angry investors, both companies already signed off the merging agreement.