This might be the same:
wsj.com
The impending sale of Arm Holdings to Nvidia Corp. for $40 billion could have wide-ranging implications for the global semiconductor industry, further elevating one of its highest fliers and unwinding another big bet by SoftBank Group Corp.
The Japanese technology conglomerate said late Sunday that it has reached a deal to sell Arm to Nvidia for a mix of cash and stock, confirming a report Saturday by The Wall Street Journal. Nvidia will pay $21.5 billion in stock and $12 billion in cash. SoftBank may also receive up to $5 billion in cash or stock subject to Arm hitting financial-performance targets. Nvidia will also issue $1.5 billion in stock to Arm employees.
From the last part:
Arm, founded in 1990 as a spinoff of a joint venture that included Apple, designs blueprints for clients, including other chip companies, to make smartphone processors. Its designs are used in processors that power around 90% of the world’s smartphones and in many other types of mobile chips.
Following a sale to Nvidia, customers like Samsung Electronics Co.,Apple and Qualcomm Inc. would face the prospect of one of their chip-making competitors owning Arm, potentially undermining its attractiveness as a neutral supplier.
Analysts have said that a Nvidia purchase of Arm wouldn’t go down well, with Bernstein Research’s Stacy Rasgon writing in a note that any single company acquiring Arm “would wield enormous power over competitors,” calling the outcome “an unpalatable situation.”
The deal also is likely to face regulatory scrutiny, particularly given the heightened tensions between the U.S. and China that have led to close reviews of semiconductor deals. President Trump blocked Broadcom Inc.’s $117 billion takeover bid for San Diego-based mobile- phone chip maker Qualcomm Inc. in 2018, amid fears that it could hamper U.S. dominance in emerging 5G technology. Qualcomm’s proposed $44 billion purchase of Dutch chip maker NXP Semiconductors NV fell through after China failed to give its approval.
Nvidia’s biggest acquisition to date, a $7 billion deal for Mellanox Technologies Ltd., faced delays because of protracted regulatory scrutiny in China. It closed in April.
China could bristle at the idea of Arm, a company used by many Chinese smartphone makers, falling into the hands of an American company. Arm’s ownership, first as a publicly traded British company and later as a subsidiary of Japan’s SoftBank, largely kept it outside the fray of Sino-American friction.
The transaction, which would make SoftBank one of Nvidia’s largest shareholders, is one of a series of big asset sales by the Japanese firm.
It had been under pressure to shore up its flagging stock price and promised some $40 billion in asset disposals. Most or all of that is already under way or completed, and SoftBank shares are up more than 20% this year. Among the sales: big chunks of its holdings in China’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and T-Mobile US Inc. following the wireless provider’s merger with Sprint Corp.
At SoftBank, Mr. Son has been working with a small team to negotiate the Arm deal including the chief executive of the chip company, Simon Segars, Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto as well as Rajeev Misra, CEO of the firm’s giant Vision Fund, and Akshay Naheta, another SoftBank executive. |
