Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron Scrap Merger Plan

TOKYO-- Applied Materials Inc. and Tokyo Electron Ltd. said that they will scrap plans to merge their operations, citing problems with the U.S. Department of Justice.

The deal, which was unveiled in September of 2013, would have created a company with an estimated market value of $29 billion. Applied planned to swap about $9.3 billion of its shares for Tokyo Electron.

"We viewed the merger as an opportunity to accelerate our strategy and worked hard to make it happen," said Gary Dickerson, president and chief executive officer of Applied Materials said in a statement.

The two companies announced in 2013 that they would join in a merger of equals, in what would have been a combination of two of the semiconductor industry's biggest suppliers.

"There remains a gap between the view of Tokyo Electron and Applied Materials and the view of the United States Department of Justice, and it has become apparent that such gap will not be able to be bridged," Tokyo Electron said in a separate statement, without specifying the nature of the troubles.

The future of the deal between the two companies was put into doubt earlier this year when plans the merger plan was pushed back due to regulatory approval issues in a number of different countries.

Write to Shawn Schroter at [e-mail]

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