SoftBank To Buy British Chip Designer ARM For $32 Billion (cnet.com)

SoftBank has agreed to acquire British chip designer ARM Holdings for $32 billion in cash. The purchase will give Japan's multinational telecommunications and Internet corporation a slice of virtually every mobile computing gadget on the planet and future connected devices in the home. ARM, unlike Intel, doesn't manufacture chips, but licenses the design for it. ARM customers shipped roughly 15 billion products with ARM chips inside in 2015. This also marks the first large-scale, cross-border transaction in Britain since it voted to exit the European Union last month. "I have admired this company for over ten years," SoftBank Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son told reporters at a press conference in London on Monday. "This is an endorsement into the view of the future of the U.K."

ARM assumes the tentpole position in chips for mobile devices. It was one of the first companies to aggressively focus on mobile devices while other semiconductor companies were ramping up their efforts on desktops. SoftBank, which is based in Tokyo has become one of the most acquisitive companies in the recent years. It heavily invests in technology, media, and telecommunications companies. ARM could provide an additional boost to SoftBank's mobile strategy. SoftBank, for instance, also owns about 83 percent of the American wireless operator Sprint.
Hermann Hauser, one of ARM's founders, said, "ARM is the proudest achievement of my life. The proposed sale to SoftBank is a sad day for me and for technology in Britain." BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones asked, "Question -- if ARM goes, what's left as a worldbeating UK-owned tech player?"

Comments

Result of brexit?

[NotInHere]

Did they use the cheap pound to shop a british company?

Re:Result of brexit?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, TFA says that because most of ARM's revenue is in US$, its stock went up after the vote and it got more expensive for Softbank.

Re:Result of brexit?

[JDeane]

Maybe, but more importantly in my opinion what they plan to do with this, if they handle it correctly it's a great investment ARM CPU's are in a LOT of devices and if they can keep innovating they will be in many more and upgrades. If they just sit on it trying to collect money, Intel will eventually figure out how to make it's portable CPU's even better and eventually take the market. (Not that Intel's SoC's are bad now)

Either way the next few years should prove interesting and we can use hindsight to see what they had in mind.

Re:Result of brexit?

[Anubis IV]

Uh, no.

The stock went up because of what Softbank offered, not the other way around.

Actually, uh, yes, the stock went up exactly for the reason AC said, as well as for the reason you said. From the article:

In fact, [SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son] said because ARM’s sales are mostly to customers in the U.S. and Asia, and are largely dollar-denominated, its stock has risen about 15 percent since the EU referendum vote. That means the deal actually became more expensive for SoftBank because of Brexit, not cheaper, he said.

ARM's valuation went up 15% after Brexit according to the article (just as AC said), and went up an additional 43% after news of the acquisition broke (just as you said), taking them to the price reported in the summary. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Re:Who?

[Big Hairy Ian]

So long Acorn and thanks for all the chips

Softbank

[sjbe]

Company I've never heard of buys most important processor company in the world. Wow.

Softbank is one of the 100 largest companies in the world. You not knowing them speaks more to your ignorance of Japan than anything else. They've been a big player in the tech world for decades.

And Intel might disagree about who is the most important processor company in the world though ARM certainly has an argument for the title. ARM is king of the hill in mobile devices but changes are you typed your posting on a device with an Intel microprocessor. Which is more important? Guess that depends on your point of view.

Meanwhile in ARM's Cambridge HQ

[TechyImmigrant]

The Softbank CEO walk in and asks "So where are your factories?"

Re:Meanwhile in ARM's Cambridge HQ

[Junta]

The sad things is that businesses by and large *hate* any hardware portion of a business. So they're perfectly happy to have a pure IP company that licenses out to companies that in turn are generally *also* fabless. The more they 'saddle' some other sap with the capital intensive business of building and moving real physical goods, the happier they are.