Two giant semiconductor equipment manufacturing companies – Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron – have called off their merger plans in the face of U.S. anti-trust objections.
Applied Materials said in a news release Sunday that the U.S. Justice Department had turned thumbs-down on the companies’ proposals to meet regulators objections to the proposed $10 takeover of Tokyo Electron that was announced in September 2013.
In a news release, the Santa Clara-based company said it had been told by Justice officials that the measures “would not be sufficient to replace the competition lost from the merger,”
“We viewed the merger as an opportunity to accelerate our strategy and worked hard to make it happen,” said Gary Dickerson, president and chief executive officer of Applied Materials, saying he was “disappointed” but moving ahead with the company’s growth plans.
The companies were hoping that synergies realized by the merger would help them cut costs.
Photo: applied-materials-logo
