US-based distribution goliath Avnet has announced that its €98.5m (£77.9m) offer for UK counterpart Horizon has been declared unconditional in all respects.

The announcement comes after the European Commission (EC) gave the acquisition its blessing on Friday.

John Paget, global president of Avnet Technology Solution, said: “The acquisition strengthens our competitive position in the UK IT distribution market by expanding our product line in high growth segments including storage, networking and security.”

London- and Dublin-listed Horizon holds vendor contracts with the likes of Sun Microsystems, EMC, F5 Networks, Juniper, IBM, Nortel, Oracle and Tandberg.

“It also expands our geographic coverage into the IT distribution market in Ireland with a suite of services and capabilities that support our strategy to deliver complete solutions that meet the increasingly complex requirements of our customer base,” Paget continued.

The EC last week cleared the way for the acquisition to take place after ruling that “a number of other wholesale distributors will exercise competitive constraints on the merged entity”.