iRobot Corp., the vacuum-cleaner maker that Amazon.com Inc. is proposing to buy in a billion-dollar deal, soared by the most in nearly three years on a report that European Union regulators plan to clear the merger.
Amazon is set to gain unconditional EU antitrust approval for its acquisition of the Bedford, Massachusetts-based maker of Roomba vacuums, Reuters reported, citing three people familiar with the matter.
EU regulators decided to perform an in-depth investigation into the deal earlier this year on concerns that the takeover could thwart competitors by handing Amazon access to a new stash of user data. In July, Amazon announced that it would pay less to buy iRobot to account for fresh financing taken out by the company and as the merger review dragged on, sending shares of the robotics company plunging.
iRobot shares rose by as much as 34% on Friday to $39.99, giving the company a market value of just over $1 billion. The gain is the stock’s biggest since Jan. 27, 2021. Amazon was down 0.9% at 10:52 a.m. in New York.
iRobot and Amazon didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. The European Commission, the EU’s merger watchdog, declined to comment. The agency had previously set a deadline for this month to vet the potential impact of the deal but has yet to issue findings.
Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority has already given the deal the green light after concluding that iRobot has a relatively modest market power. The US Federal Trade Commission is still reviewing the merger.
Read More: Status of Major Deals Facing Regulatory Reviews
--With assistance from Samuel Stolton.
