SAP Acquisition Of Sybase Wins European Commission Approval

SAP has won approval from the European Commission to complete its $5.8 billion acquisition of software vendor Sybase – little more than two months after SAP and Sybase announced the acquisition deal.

The relatively speedy stamp-of-approval from the European Commission is in sharp contract to the battle Oracle had to wage with the EC to win permission to complete its $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

Oracle announced the Sun deal on April 20, 2009 and didn’t complete the buyout until nine months later on Jan. 27 of this year. A significant amount of that time was spent trying to overcome European Commission worries that the acquisition would be anti-competitive. The EC gave final approval for the Sun buyout just a week before Oracle completed it.

Waldorf, Germany-based SAP, in an announcement Tuesday, said the European Commission decision clears the final regulatory hurdle the two companies need to complete the deal. SAP’s cash tender offer for all outstanding shares of Sybase common stock is scheduled to expire next Monday, July 26.

SAP is also scheduled to release its second-quarter financial results on July 27.