HTHIY Hitachi Ltd (PK)

BRUSSELS—The European Union on Monday approved Dell Inc.'s purchase of data-storage company EMC Corp., clearing an important hurdle for one of the largest technology-industry takeovers to date.

The European Commission, the bloc's antitrust watchdog, said it waived the deal through because the merged company would still have only a moderate share in the market for external enterprise-storage systems and continue to face competition from companies such as Hitachi Ltd. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.

Dell and private-equity firm Silver Lake announced in October they would buy EMC in an effort to cement Dell's transition from a consumer-facing company to one focused on technology for large companies.

"Given the strategic importance of the data-storage sector, I am pleased that we have been able to approve Dell's multibillion dollar takeover of EMC within a short space of time while making sure that there would be no adverse effects on customers, said Margrethe Vestager, the EU's antitrust chief.

Investors have been concerned about the deal's health given the size of Dell's debt-load, the complexity of the transaction and getting regulatory approval.

Since going private in 2013, Dell has moved its business operations away from personal computers and toward more-profitable areas such as storage and security.

EMC, based in Hopkinton, Mass., sells high-price data-storage systems to corporate customers, and that business has taken a drubbing as information- technology managers seek lower cost alternatives including cloud-computing services sold by companies such as Amazon.com Inc.

The value of Dell's offer is pegged, in part, to shares of EMC subsidiary VMware. They have dropped more than 40% since the deal was announced in October, reducing the value of the EMC buyout from $67 billion to around $58 billion.

The companies said last week that they had received clearance from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for the proposed merger.

Dell has said it expects the deal to be concluded by October.

Write to Natalia Drozdiak at natalia.drozdiak@wsj.com and Gabriele Steinhauser at gabriele.steinhauser@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 29, 2016 09:45 ET (14:45 GMT)

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