Deal to buy 3Com appears to be off

China's Huawei Technologies Co. and Boston investment firm Bain Capital Partners are dropping their plan to buy 3Com Corp., the Marlborough-based maker of computer networking equipment, Bloomberg News reported today.

Huawei and Bain are now longer seeking an application from a federal agency for approval to buy 3Com, Bloomberg said.

It had been reported earlier that Bain's plan to buy 3Com, which supplys the US government with gear to thwart network intrusions, failed to satisfy a federal agency that the transaction wouldn't harm national security.

The deal, proposed in September, would take 3Com private and give a 16 percent stake in the company to Huawei, a telecommunications company with close ties to the Chinese military services, the Globe noted in a story yesterday.

In a story today, Bloomberg cited an e-mailed statement from Huawei.

``Rising costs and a stock market environment that has changed drastically in the past year'' were also factors that made the parties withdraw their application from the federal agency that had the power to block the deal, Huawei said in the statement.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)