---
title: "Broadcom → VMware"
url: "https://mahouse.world/ma-deals/broadcom-buy-vmware-2022"
type: "M&A deal"
year: "2022"
author: "Ihor Vlasov"
reviewed: "2026-09-20"
---

# Broadcom → VMware

A $61bn cash-and-stock deal — about $69bn including debt — for the virtualisation software company, closed in November 2023 after eighteen months of reviews, after which Broadcom moved VMware's customers to subscription-only licensing and raised prices sharply.

Closed at roughly $69bn including debt, after which Broadcom moved VMware customers to subscription-only licensing.

- **Acquirer:** Broadcom (United States)
- **Target:** VMware (United States)
- **Value:** $61B
- **Announced:** May 2022
- **Completed:** November 2023
- **Sector:** Technology
- **Deal type:** acquisition

## Why it mattered

Broadcom under Hock Tan had built a semiconductor group by acquisition and then bought software — CA Technologies in 2018, Symantec's enterprise business in 2019 — on a consistent model: buy a mature product with locked-in customers, cut the cost base, raise prices, and run for cash. VMware, whose software ran most corporate data centres and had been spun out of Dell a year earlier, was the largest application of that model, and the price of about 8 times revenue reflected a business bought for its installed base rather than its growth.

Clearance took the US, the EU (with commitments on interoperability), the UK and, at the last, China; the deal closed a week before its long-stop date. Within months Broadcom ended perpetual licences, consolidated products into bundles and cut the partner programme, and customers reported price increases of several multiples.

## What it left behind

A reference case in two directions. For acquirers, the proof that a cash-generating software estate can be bought at scale and repriced, with Broadcom's software revenue and margins rising as forecast. For customers, the clearest recent example of acquisition risk in a supplier — and a reason procurement teams now ask, in every diligence, what happens to the terms if the vendor is bought.

— Ihor Vlasov, M&A FinTech Expert. Last reviewed 2026-09-20. https://mahouse.world/authors/ihor-vlasov