Amazon Lowers iRobot Share Price After Securing $200 Million Credit Line

Amazon lowers the purchase price for the company iRobot. The developer of robot vacuum cleaners has secured a $200 million line of credit. The billion-dollar deal announced almost a year ago is still pending due to competition investigations.

Instead of the originally agreed $61 per share, a purchase price of $51.75 was agreed. This was announced by Amazon and iRobot on Tuesday.

The price of iRobot on the US stock exchange then fell by around twelve percent to around $41.

iRobot intends to use the credit line to finance its day-to-day business. Amazon assumes that the lower purchase price will be “largely” offset by iRobot’s new net debt. When the acquisition was announced in early August 2022, the developer of the Roomba vacuum cleaner was valued at around $1.7 billion.

With the purchase of the industry pioneer, Amazon wants to expand its role in the connected home. With a view to the deal, the EU Commission’s competition watchdogs expressed their concerns at the beginning of July. Amazon may be able and incentivized to shut iRobot’s competitors out of the market, they warned. For example, they could be prevented from selling vacuum robots on Amazon’s online marketplace.