HP Enterprise, Juniper announce settlement with Department of Justice

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Juniper Networks (JNPR) announced they have reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice that, subject to court approval, resolves the DOJ’s lawsuit challenging HPE’s acquisition of Juniper and clears the way for the transaction to close. “Upon close of the deal, the combined resources of HPE and Juniper are expected to drive faster innovation across networking silicon, systems, and software to meet customers’ increasingly complex connectivity needs. This new alternative to legacy incumbent networking solutions positively changes the competitive dynamics in the networking market and provides customers with greater innovation, choice and faster time to value. Combined with the innovation from HPE in hybrid cloud, storage, compute and software, networking customers will now have an even stronger path to accelerate and simplify their AI transformations. On January 9, 2024, HPE announced its agreement to acquire Juniper in an all-cash transaction for $40.00 per share, representing an equity value of approximately $14B. The agreement satisfies the Department of Justice’s concerns while maintaining the overall value of the transaction to HPE customers, partners, and shareholders. As part of the settlement, HPE has agreed to divest its global Instant On campus and branch business. After close, HPE will facilitate limited access to Juniper’s advanced Mist AIOps technology,” the companies stated. “Our agreement with the DOJ paves the way to close HPE’s acquisition of Juniper Networks and preserves the intended benefits of this deal for our customers and shareholders, while creating greater competition in the global networking market. For the first time, customers will now have a modern network architecture alternative that can best support the demands of AI workloads. The combination of HPE Aruba Networking and Juniper Networks will provide customers with a comprehensive portfolio of secure, AI-native networking solutions, and accelerate HPE’s ability to grow in the AI data center, service provider and cloud segments,” said Antonio Neri, president and CEO of HPE.