ARM likely to be taken over by Softbank

[peterb]

News breaking on BBC this morning

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36822806

[kalniel]

High yen, low pound. Good a time as any

[HEXUS]

Cambridge-based chip designer to be acquired by Japanese firm at a rate of £17 per share.

Read more.

[shaithis]

Oh well, one of the last bits of British innovation going overseas then

[sykobee]

Whilst this is great for ARM, as they will get a lot of money to expand now, that's another British company, one of the non-finance jewels even, being sold abroad on the cheap as a result of the fallout of Brexit and the devalued pound.

[kingpotnoodle]

If the company facilities remain in the UK, the bulk of the staff are employed in the UK and the taxes from that activity go the the UK government then does it really matter who technically owns it? If the 1500 jobs claim actually comes to fruition then surely it can only be a good thing for the UK.

[jim]

If the company facilities remain in the UK, the bulk of the staff are employed in the UK and the taxes from that activity go the the UK government then does it really matter who technically owns it? If the 1500 jobs claim actually comes to fruition then surely it can only be a good thing for the UK.

Not massively. The downside is that if the owners are British, and they pay dividends, then those profits go back into the British economy - if they're Japanese then they might go into the Japanese economy.

But when so many of these companies are traded publicly those dividends will be global anyway.

[scaryjim]

I think my favourite bit was:

"The offer represents a 43% premium on the value of the company at close of markets on Friday. ARM shares jumped 46% in early trading"

So there was that brief moment were trading on the news story took ARMs value above the offer that was being made...! The share price has dropped back now, but it no longer looks like such a generous offer...

[darcotech]

I am not British, but I do not like that ARM goes in others hand.
It's just doesn't sound right.

They have so much money so they can just buy the companies.

Hope they actually do what they promised (double the number of employees).

ARM is one of the best tech company in the world. Should stay that way.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Softbank sponsor games,so will we see ARM sponsored games??

[g8ina]

Ive merged the two threads on this subject.

[watercooled]

Business isn't a strong point of mine but I wonder what real differences (if any) this will make? Sure, ARM is a fairly small company when compared to the likes of Intel but it didn't seem like they were desperately in need of extra cash or manpower - they've been consistently been churning out more-than-competitive products at an impressive cadence and raking in a tidy profit.

E.g. their A72 is extremely competitive with the latest cores from Qualcomm, Samsung and Apple and seems very efficient to boot, there's a supposedly even more efficient A73 just around the corner and then they have a wide variety of lower-power cores to choose from for seemingly every segment below that. And on the graphics side, aside from Apple and Qualcomm, Mali seems to be doing extremely well in the mobile SoC market. Same with their microcontroller and realtime-focussed IP.

They... just don't seem to be in need of expansion or extra cash? Or am I wrong? See a company like AMD I could understand a buyout from a wealthy company being beneficial, I just don't see what ARM really get out of this?

If I had to guess at an area ARM could move in to (but far from cheaply) would be even larger x86-competing cores for the datacentre, but is that somewhere Softbank is likely to want to invest?

It's also a bit sad to see yet another successful independent company bought up by a huge multinational but I guess it's been on the table for a long time, with the likes of Apple rumoured to be interested - and that probably wouldn't have been good for the wider market if their history of buy-outs is anything to go by (i.e. they seem to fully absorb smaller companies and stop them selling externally).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Softbank can't be that bad if they do crazy adverts like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcvRLKO_pU



Tommy Lee Jones with LASER EYES TOO!!

[gagaga]

I think my favourite bit was:

"The offer represents a 43% premium on the value of the company at close of markets on Friday. ARM shares jumped 46% in early trading"

So there was that brief moment were trading on the news story took ARMs value above the offer that was being made...! The share price has dropped back now, but it no longer looks like such a generous offer...

The overshoot is anticipation of a competing bid that will raise the sale price above what Softbank have offered. In these situations, it is quite common for the final sale price to be 10% or so above the initial bid (often the opening bidder will win at a higher price). That it has settled back to 1700p usggests the city does not now expect a competing bid.

[flearider]

like has been said it's being primed for the next lvl.. maybe an assualt on intel ,nvidia or a backward way to take control of amd ? as they have links in all companys ..

[kalniel]

Business isn't a strong point of mine but I wonder what real differences (if any) this will make? Sure, ARM is a fairly small company when compared to the likes of Intel

By value measure perhaps, but in terms of unit sales ARM smashes Intel.

but it didn't seem like they were desperately in need of extra cash or manpower - they've been consistently been churning out more-than-competitive products at an impressive cadence and raking in a tidy profit.
..
They... just don't seem to be in need of expansion or extra cash? Or am I wrong? See a company like AMD I could understand a buyout from a wealthy company being beneficial, I just don't see what ARM really get out of this?

They don't need it at all, but you always have an exit plan. ARM are beholden to their shareholders, so if this is the best thing for the shareholders ARM are doing what they ought to do.