A major takeover is in the offing in the American technology sector: according to media reports, the semiconductor group Broadcom is in talks about buying the software specialist VM Ware.
It would be an expensive acquisition, VM Ware was valued at around $40 billion on the stock market before negotiations became public, and any purchase price would possibly be significantly higher.
On Monday, VM Ware stock was up more than 20 percent in the course of trading, while Broadcom stock was down more than 4 percent.
Broadcom is best known as a supplier of semiconductors.
The once-Singapore-based company, which relocated to the United States a few years ago, has recently attempted to diversify, focusing primarily on software.
In 2018 it took over the software provider CA Technologies for almost $19 billion, a year later it paid almost $11 billion for a division of the security specialist Symantec.
Last year it also negotiated a purchase of the software manufacturer SAS Institute, which then did not materialize.
VM Ware once became known with so-called virtualization software, with which network computers (servers) can be used more efficiently in companies.
Today, cloud computing solutions are at the heart of the business.
About six months ago, the company was spun off from the Dell technology group, which until then had majority ownership.
Until the beginning of last year, VM Ware was managed by Pat Gelsinger, today's CEO of the semiconductor group Intel.
VM Ware recently achieved annual sales of $12.9 billion, Broadcom came to $27.5 billion.