According to a report from the Financial Times, Japanese multinational telecommunications company SoftBank has acquired British chip company ARM Holdings for £23.4 billion, with an announcement of the deal expected Monday UK time before the start of trading in the UK.
ARM Holdings is the company who designs the ARM processors and GPU’s used in many devices, with companies such as Qualcomm, Samsung and Nvidia licensing the designs. Around 15 million ARM-designed chips shipped last year for use in consumer products such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and more.
Softbank is currently the number 3 carrier in Japan, who have been branching out into other markets, most recently with the purchase of a controlling interest in US carrier Sprint.
The sale is apparently an all-cash deal and according to the Financial Times, both boards have agreed to the deal.
What this will mean going forward, will become more clear once the announcement is made and become official.
Wow I’ve always wondered about this happening.. like why doesn’t someone buy ARM or what would happen if a company did buy ARM.
Hmm, how much cash does Apple have hanging around offshore at the moment, doing nothing, with nowhere to go?
I do wish I’d bought some Acorn RISC Machines stock when it was 21p…..
Well I just read an article that said $16 billion cash, up to $215 billion all up in investments (non cash). But most of the profits are overseas and to bring them home would require paying tax so they wont do it.
But that was my point. The number’s I’ve seen say Apple has more than enough money available, and ARM being a UK company, they wouldn’t have to repatriate any of it to the US (and pay tax).
They obviously have a vested interest in the ARM processor – you can see how having control of the IP would help them.