A little over a year ago, Adobe, the maker of popular editing software like Photoshop and Premiere CC, announced plans to acquire Figma, a popular design tool, for about $20 billion USD (roughly $26.4 billion CAD at the time).
Now, the software maker has called off the acquisition, following opposition from regulators in the U.K. and the EU, as shared by the company in recent press release.
Both the companies mutually agreed to terminate the deal. “Adobe and Figma strongly disagree with the recent regulatory findings, but we believe it is in our respective best interests to move forward independently,” said Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe. “While Adobe and Figma shared a vision to jointly redefine the future of creativity and productivity, we continue to be well positioned to capitalize on our massive market opportunity and mission to change the world through personalized digital experiences.”
The regulators blocked the merger because it would reportedly harm competition in the design and editing software market, alongside reducing innovation and choice for customers.
The previously agreed upon acquisition termination fee was $1 billion USD (roughly $1.37 billion CAD), which Adobe will pay to Figma.
Further, as shared by Engadget, Adobe also anticipated regulatory challenges in the U.S., where the Department of Justice (DOJ) was reportedly preparing to sue Adobe to block the merger. Adobe and Figma reportedly met with DOJ officials last week to try to convince them to approve the deal, but their efforts were in vain.
Check out the complete report here.
In other Adobe-related news, the company is reportedly planning to acquire Rephrase, an AI company that specializes in text-to-video conversion.
Image credit: Shutterstock
Source: Adobe
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