Amazon abandons plans to purchase Roomba maker iRobot

Amazon’s deal to purchase Roomba maker iRobot is off, the firms introduced right now, after iRobot stated the deal has “no path to regulatory approval within the European Union.” iRobot can also be saying that it’s shedding round 350 staff, or round 31 % of its workforce as a part of a restructuring.

As a part of the announcement, iRobot’s chairman and CEO Colin Angle is stepping down. iRobot’s present govt vice chairman and chief authorized officer Glen Weinstein will function interim CEO, and Andrew Miller, previously lead impartial director of the board, will grow to be chairman.

The announcement comes after the $1.4 billion acquisition bumped into difficulties with EU regulators. Final November, the European Fee stated it believed the deal had the potential to limit competitors within the robotic vacuum cleaner market. A lot of iRobot’s opponents additionally promote their gadgets on Amazon’s on-line retailer, and regulators have been involved that Amazon might delist or cut back the visibility of rival robotic vacuum cleaners, limiting competitors, and “resulting in larger costs, decrease high quality, and fewer innovation for shoppers.”

The collapse of the deal means Amazon might want to pay a $94 million termination payment to iRobot. However the Roomba producer might want to use nearly all of this to repay a $200 million mortgage it took out final yr, the Monetary Instances reported on the time.

Within the time since saying its plans to purchase iRobot, Amazon’s gadgets and providers enterprise has gained a brand new boss. When the deal was first introduced, Dave Limp was nonetheless serving as Amazon {hardware}’s prime govt. However as of the top of October 2023, Limp has been changed by Panos Panay, who moved into the function from Microsoft, whereas Limp has transitioned to CEO of Jeff Bezos’ aerospace firm, Blue Origin.