(Bloomberg) -- Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. and Juniper Networks Inc. representatives met with Justice Department antitrust enforcers last week in a final effort to persuade the agency not to challenge their proposed $14 billion deal, according to people familiar with the matter.
The high-stakes meeting between the companies and the Justice Department’s top antitrust officials typically occurs before the government decides whether to file a lawsuit. It’s often referred to as a “last-rites” meeting.
DOJ officials are ready to challenge the deal if necessary and have made their concerns known to the company, but no final decision on whether to bring a lawsuit has been reached. The department could let HPE’s purchase of Juniper proceed, potentially with some changes to address its competition concerns if the companies agree to revise the transaction.
A decision on whether to challenge the deal could be made as soon as this week, according to the people, who asked for anonymity to speak about nonpublic information. However, the companies may choose to delay the deal until President-elect Donald Trump’s administration takes over in January in the hopes of a more favorable view of the transaction, the people said.
Concerns about the deal faltering have weighed on shares of Juniper in recent days. The stock fell 2.5% to $35.61 in New York on Monday, following a 5% drop on Friday. That’s well below HPE’s offer price of $40 per share in cash for Juniper.
The Justice Department declined to comment for this article.
HPE and Juniper said they have been working cooperatively with government regulators throughout the process, but declined to comment on the meeting.
Penny Still, Juniper’s senior director of global relations, said in a statement the deal is “highly pro-competitive and would allow the combined company to better serve customers with improved product offerings and greater innovation.”
HPE spokesperson Laura Keller said the deal will “fundamentally change the dynamics of the networking sector for the better by promoting more competition and innovation.”
HPE and Juniper have said they expect to close the deal by early 2025, which could allow them to wait out the Biden antitrust enforcers.
Biden’s antitrust leaders have been aggressively challenging deals, carrying out his goal of curbing corporate concentration across the economy. But given Trump’s victory earlier this month, companies may want to hold out for a new administration that’s potentially more receptive to dealmaking.
Juniper, like its bigger rival Cisco Systems Inc., makes networking devices such as routers and switches. Networking is the technology that directs the flow of information between devices and across the internet.
Since Hewlett-Packard was split into two companies in 2015, HPE has focused on expanding lucrative business lines such as selling high-powered computing and cloud services.
Both companies supply gear used by companies and organizations to provide wireless internet access to people inside their facilities. Cisco is the leader with about 31% of the US market, according to IDC. HPE and Juniper are the third and fourth largest in the US, respectively, and combined would jump to No. 2 ahead of Vantiva SA.
Both the UK and the EU have already cleared the deal. The Justice Department launched an in-depth probe of the tie-up earlier this year. Department lawyers have been interviewing company executives as well as employees of their customers and competitors, the people familiar said.
--With assistance from Ian King and Nick Turner.
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