Microsoft's £18 billion LinkedIn deal gets EU approval and will close in few days time

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The European Union has approved Microsoft’s $26.2 billion (£18 billion) bid to purchase LinkedIn.

The deal was "unanimously approved" by both sets of company directors back in June, with Microsoft pledging to acquire the social network in an all-cash deal. "Jeff Weiner will remain CEO of LinkedIn, reporting to Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft," Microsoft said at the time, with the chairman of LinkedIn's board Reid Hoffman calling the deal a "re-founding moment for LinkedIn".

However, antitrust concerns led the EU to investigate the pending acquisition, and the European Commission has now finally cleared it - on a few conditions. In a statement, the Commission said it no longer had competition concerns: “Microsoft is a relatively small player in the customer relationship management market, where it faces strong competitors, such as Salesforce, the clear market leader, Oracle and SAP. The Commission therefore considered it unlikely that the transaction would enable Microsoft to foreclose these players and eliminate competition in this market.”

However, Microsoft has agreed to two main “commitments”, applicable for five years: PC manufacturers and distributors must have the option not to have LinkedIn on Windows preinstalled, and if they choose to preinstall it customers must have the option to remove it; competing professional social networks must still be able to integrate Microsoft’s Office applications and have access to Microsoft Graph (a portal for developers to build apps that use Microsoft cloud).

EU Commissioner for competition Margrethe Vestager said: "A growing number of Europeans subscribe to professional social networks. These networks are important for professionals to connect and interact and to find new career opportunities. Today's decision ensures that Europeans will continue to enjoy a freedom of choice between professional social networks."

As a result the deal is expected to close “in the coming days”, Microsoft’s chief legal officer Brad Smith has said. “The approval in Brussels follows similar reviews and clearances in the United States, Canada, Brazil and South Africa.”

Interestingly, he used a blogpost on the approval to explain how LinkedIn and Microsoft see the acquisition as a way forward after the tumultuous political moments of 2016. “With this regulatory process behind us, we can bring together two great companies and focus on even broader issues for the future. The events of the past six months make not just this business opportunity, but the broader societal issues connected to them, more important.” He goes on to note how the EU referendum vote and Presidential vote followed the June purchase, showing how “on both sides of the Atlantic, it has become increasingly apparent that many people feel left out and unable to participate in the economic growth and opportunities created by the rising digital economy”.

“Our ambition is to do our part to create more opportunity for people who haven’t shared in recent economic growth.”

While the deal won't see LinkedIn being rebranded or losing its independence - despite the sale of customer data following a previous large-scale hack - the ownership will result in a number of changes to products and services.
One new proposal that has already been made is a new "newsfeed".

"This combination will make it possible for new experiences such as a LinkedIn newsfeed that serves up articles based on the project you are working on and Office suggesting an expert to connect with via LinkedIn to help with a task you’re trying to complete," Nadella said in an email to all Microsoft staff.

Meanwhile, Weiner has outlined his reasonings for selling the company. Primarily, he said, the company didn't want to be "looking up at tech titans" such as Apple and Google.
The LinkedIn CEO also went on to say that there would be a greater combination of the two companies' services.

"Think about things like LinkedIn's graph interwoven throughout Outlook, Calendar, Active Directory, Office, Windows, Skype, Dynamics, Cortana, Bing and more," he said.
Weiner added that "sponsored content" would have the "ability to reach Microsoft users anywhere across the Microsoft ecosystem".