Acquisitions

For Engadget’s 20th anniversary, we put together a package of stories about the most pivotal pieces of technology from the past two decades, and mine was on Steam. It’s difficult to overstate how influential Steam is to PC gaming, or how rich the storefront has made Valve. As a private company with infinite piles of Steam cash, Valve has the freedom to ignore market pressure from consumers, creators and competitors. It famously has a flat hierarchy with no strict management structure, and developers are encouraged to…

Pennies were pinched in Mountain View last year. For much of its existence as a public company, Google had made a headline-grabbing acquisition at least once a year as it used the profits from its surging ads business to bet on new frontiers. Billions of dollars went to scooping up Motorola, Nest, HTC, and Fitbit to build up it hardware business. Apigee, Looker, and Mandiant rounded out Google’s cloud computing unit. But Alphabet’s latest annual report reveals that the splurging stopped in 2023.Alphabet omitted a section…

In a strategic move to harness the potential of artificial intelligence (AI), Apple has been quietly acquiring tech startups, totaling 21 since 2017. This suggests a significant AI push may be on the horizon, with expectations of unveiling AI…

Updated Jan. 16, 2024 5:13 pm ETA federal judge on Tuesday blocked JetBlue Airways’ $3.8 billion deal to buy Spirit Airlines, rejecting a merger that he said would hamper competition and lead to higher fares.The ruling thwarts what would have been the biggest U.S. airline merger in over a decade. It marks a victory for the U.S. Department of Justice, which sued last year to prevent JetBlue and Spirit from going ahead with their tie-up.Copyright ©2024Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.…

Thomson Reuters said it has bought a majority stake in the Pagero Group, taking it closer toward full control of the latter.Apart from the key shareholders, including Summa Equity, Pagero’s chief executive Bengt Nilsson, several members of the management team and employees, have sold their stock to the company, Thomson Reuters said Monday.Copyright ©2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 Thomson Reuters said it has bought a majority stake in the Pagero Group, taking it…

Updated Jan. 11, 2024 10:59 am ETHertz is selling about a third of its global electric vehicle fleet, citing weaker demand for its electrified rentals.The car-rental company said in a regulatory filing on Thursday that it would use part of the proceeds from selling about 20,000 EVs in the U.S. to purchase internal-combustion-engine vehicles.Copyright ©2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 Updated Jan. 11, 2024 10:59 am ETHertzis selling about a third of its global…

Intel agreed to buy Silicon Mobility SAS, a fabless silicon and software company that develops system-on-chips for intelligent electric vehicle energy management.The purchase is one of the plans Intel announced at CES to bring its “AI everywhere strategy into the automotive market.”Copyright ©2024Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 Intel agreed to buy Silicon Mobility SAS, a fabless silicon and software company that develops system-on-chips for intelligent electric…

Updated Jan. 10, 2024 1:29 am ETFrasers Property’s majority owners could sell the company or some of its assets as part of a strategic review, people familiar with the situation said.One of the people said the review is in its initial stages and there is no assurance of any outcome.Copyright ©2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 Updated Jan. 10, 2024 1:29 am ETFrasers Property’s majority owners could sell the company or some of its assets as part of a strategic…

Updated Jan. 11, 2024 4:34 am ETThomson Reuters is launching a $626 million cash bid for Pagero Group, beating a rival offer made by Vertex for the Swedish e-invoicing provider last month.Thomson Reuters said Thursday that it will begin a public tender offer to acquire all of Pagero’s shares on Friday. It intends to pay 40 Swedish krona a share, valuing the Gothenburg-based company at SEK6.4 billion ($626.0 million).Copyright ©2024Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8…

Updated Jan. 11, 2024 6:14 am ETAmazon.com missed a Wednesday deadline to offer remedies to the European Union over its $1.7 billion acquisition of Roomba maker iRobot, after the bloc had raised concerns that the deal could stifle competition in the robot vacuum cleaner market.The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, made its concerns known in November after conducting an in-depth investigation into the deal that was outlined in August 2022. The bloc sent Amazon a so-called statement of objections—a formal step to…