By Michelle Chapman
Adobe's planned $20 billion acquisition of online design company Figma is being called off due to pushback in Europe over antitrust concerns, the companies said Monday.
The companies announced the cash-and-stock deal in September 2022, seeking a path with Figma's web-based, multi-player capabilities to accelerate the delivery of Adobe's creative cloud technologies on the web.
"Although both companies continue to believe in the merits and procompetitive benefits of the combination, Adobe and Figma mutually agreed to terminate the transaction based on a joint assessment that there is no clear path to receive necessary regulatory approvals from the European Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority," Adobe and Figma said in a prepared statement on Monday.
The European Commission said Monday that it was aware of the decision to terminate the deal and that its investigation into the proposed transaction had now ended.
U.S. companies have regularly run into roadblocks in Europe over similar concerns of monopolies.
Biotech giant Illumina on Sunday said that it will undo its $7.1 billion purchase of the cancer-screening company Grail after losing legal battles with antitrust enforcers in the U.S. and Europe. Late last month, European regulators said that Amazon's proposed acquisition of robot vacuum maker iRobot may harm competition.
In October, Microsoft completed its purchase of video game-maker Activision Blizzard for $69 billion after a bruising fight with antitrust regulators in Europe and the U.S.
Last month the Markets Authority said that an early review of a potential tie-up between the two companies suggested a "substantial lessening of competition" in the global market for all-in-one product design software for professionals, as well as editing software.
Figma, founded in 2012, allows those who design interactive mobile and web applications to collaborate through multi-player workflows, sophisticated design systems and a developer ecosystem.
Adobe, based in San Jose, California, sells software for creating, publishing and promoting content, and managing documents.
David Wadhwani, president, Digital Media Business, at Adobe, said in prepared statement that the software company will continue to look for ways to partner with Figma in the future.
The companies said that they have signed a termination agreement that resolves all outstanding matters from the transaction. Adobe Inc. will pay Figma a termination fee of $1 billion, which was previously agreed to.
Shares of Adobe rose slightly in morning trading.
Michelle Chapman is an AP business writer
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More