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Retail giant Amazon: Deadline has passed
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Pascal Rossignol / REUTERS
Investors are pulling the plug on iRobot out of fear that the takeover by Amazon will fail.
The price of the robot vacuum manufacturer's shares fell by almost 40 percent to $14.3 in after-hours trading on Thursday.
Before trading began on Friday, the price had recovered somewhat, but was still temporarily down 35.9 percent.
The price crash followed a report in the Wall Street Journal according to which the European Union's competition authorities want to finally block Amazon's $1.4 billion takeover of the vacuum cleaner robot manufacturer.
Amazon was informed during a meeting with European Commission staff on Thursday that the deal was likely to be rejected, the report said.
Amazon declined to comment for this report.
The US group had rejected concessions in the approval process for the planned deal, as can be seen from the EU Commission's presentation on the Internet.
A corresponding deadline for Amazon expired on Wednesday.
The competition authorities had been taking a closer look at the purchase since June.
They fear that this could restrict competition in vacuum cleaner robots and strengthen the company's dominant position as an online marketplace provider.
In November they reinforced their concerns.
The British competition authority CMA, however, gave the green light for the takeover in June.
The retail giant had announced its plans to purchase iRobot in August 2022 to expand its portfolio of smart devices.
The European Commission, which acts as the EU's competition authority, has until February 14 to either approve or reject the deal.
mik/Reuters