Japan's Softbank to buy ARM for £23.4bn [Financial Times][NYT][Bloomberg]

[videogames101]

EDIT: Formal Announcement: https://www.acceleratingtech.com/disclaimer/

43% premium on shares

I presume the formal announcement will be early this week, but leaks are abound:

https://next.ft.com/content/235b1af4-4c7f-11e6-8172-e39ecd3b86fc

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/18/b...ank-group-nears-deal-to-buy-arm-holdings.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...near-32-4-billion-acquisition-of-arm-holdings

 

[Arachnotronic]

Completely unexpected o_o

Nice score for ARM Holdings shareholders, though. Nice premium.

 

[HiroThreading]

Good lord...

 

[dark zero]

Oh no.... please, no....
If that means that ARM might end like Intel, is definately bad news....

Qualcomm, Mediatek, Rockchip, Spreadtrumm, Samsung, AMD, Apple and even nVIDIA must be terrified since that means only one thing: it will increase cost of the chips they make due licenses...

Maybe is time to make MIPS to shine at last?

 

[dbcoopernz]

Oh no.... please, no....
If that means that ARM might end like Intel, is definately bad news....

Qualcomm, Mediatek, Rockchip, Spreadtrumm, Samsung, AMD, Apple and even nVIDIA must be terrified since that means only one thing: it will increase cost of the chips they make due licenses...

Maybe is time to make MIPS to shine at last?

Enter the age of RISC-V?

 

[jhu]

At least they have a cute mascot.

 

[Roland00Address]

At least they have a cute mascot.

Yes Otosan is cute

Youtube of some of the commercials including captions with english subtitles

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

The White Family

The Dad is a dog

The Mom is a traditional japanese woman

The Son is a black adult man with glasses (This is weird in Japan for over 98% of the population are native born japanese, with almost all of the 2 remaining percent being other forms of asian such as Korean, Chinese, etc)

The Maid is a an alien played by Tommy Lee Jones, who looks like Tommy Lee Jones most of the times but sometimes his eyes go weird.


===========================

I hope ARM remains ARM at its core and will not change. But since it is not in my control all I can do is cross my fingers.

 

[mxnerd]

Stock holders will be very happy, vendors & consumers maybe not.

 

[Roland00Address]

Reading the NYT article (credit to OP videogames101)

I find it ironic it seems three things made this possible

A) Brexit causing a decrease in the value of the English Pound compared to other currencies. (for example in the US due to the currency drop when the UK voted leave on Brexit, you can now convert US dollars to UK Pounds for 85% of the value of today's US dollars compared to what it was 3 weeks ago where it would cost 15% more US dollars to do the same conversion). This in turn allows an effect 15% cheaper price on the ARM stock.

B) Softbank selling it majority stake of Clash of Clans to Tencent Holdings (A China Investment Holdings Company), this occurred last month and netted softbank $8.6 Billion.

C) Softbank selling some of its share of Alibaba (The Chinese online retailer in much the same way the online retailer of the US is Amazon.com) for $10 billion.

I do not know why I find this funny but the fact that half of the necessary money to make this possible was due to a freemium game, makes this really funny in my eyes.

 

[NTMBK]

Well at least it keeps it out of Chinese hands.

If they follow through on the promises of increased investment and headcount, I feel sorry for Imagination.

 

[know of fence]

What good is an all time high share price if currency is at a long time low.
What do you do with all those pounds, buy shares of British companies that haven't been gobbled up, yet?

 

[NTMBK]

What good is an all time high share price if currency is at a long time low.
What do you do with all those pounds, buy shares of British companies that haven't been gobbled up, yet?

Wait for the currency to rebound and make a tidy profit.

 

[krumme]

If a73 wasnt enough pressure on qcom and samsung own cpu design softbanks expansions plan on uk staff will put tremendous pressure on future designs.
Its absolutely great to finaly have a huge guy with deep pockets behind arm. This could have fundamental effects for the future cpu market on 5 years plus perspective.

Nothing is as important for business as owners. And this could be a big bang.

 

[dark zero]

Well at least it keeps it out of Chinese hands.

If they follow through on the promises of increased investment and headcount, I feel sorry for Imagination.

You think that?
I feel the opposite... Samsung, Qualcomm, Mediatek and even Apple will rethink to rethink if is worthy to stay in ARM or is better to move to MIPS

 

[Arachnotronic]

Wait for the currency to rebound and make a tidy profit.

Nah, you don't buy a company at a 43% premium with the intention to try to flip it later.

 

[MrTeal]

B) Softbank selling it majority stake of Clash of Clans to Tencent Holdings (A China Investment Holdings Company), this occurred last month and netted softbank $8.6 Billion.

I do not know why I find this funny but the fact that half of the necessary money to make this possible was due to a freemium game, makes this really funny in my eyes.

Holy crap. I knew that must have been somewhat large based on the fact they keep airing those stupid commercials, but that's an insane valuation for one game. Unless Tencent also uses that to data mine for the Chinese government, I can't imagine that Softbank didn't get the best end of that deal.

 

[NTMBK]

Nah, you don't buy a company at a 43% premium with the intention to try to flip it later.

Oh, I was referring to what the former ARMH owners could do with their sudden windfall.

 

[Nothingness]

Nah, you don't buy a company at a 43% premium with the intention to try to flip it later.

Can't wait to read what you'll write about that

What bothers me is that Softbank has a $100B debt and that this will dilute a ~4K company into a ~65K one. I just can't believe they'll let ARM untouched and undamaged.

 

[videogames101]

I don't think you pay a 43% premium unless it's a long play. It will be interesting to see how much the Softbank management touches the ARM management.

 

[Phynaz]

Reminder....

Softbank owns Sprint Communications.

 

[dark zero]

Reminder....

Softbank owns Sprint Communications.

Oh no... that's worse! So... exclusive models are coming up?

What they want to do? Kill ARM?

I hate to say this but it was the worst moment for Intel to leave the market..

Now MIPS has the chance to get some companies for them.

 

[senseamp]

What happens if Apple buys Imagination Technologies, and becomes owner of MIPS? It could easily happen, especially if a competitor bids for Imagination and forces Apple's hand.
How long are they going to stick with ARM?

 

[NostaSeronx]

What if... hear me out now... what if... aliens. It is clear now that aliens are manipulating the markets.

 

[senseamp]

As Andy Grove used to say, when it comes to tech, only the paranoid survive.
SoftBank is paying 40x(forward)-60x(trailing) earnings, so we are talking about decades to make back in earnings what they are spending now. A lot of stuff can happen in the meantime.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Qualcomm, Mediatek, Rockchip, Spreadtrumm, Samsung, AMD, Apple and even nVIDIA must be terrified since that means only one thing: it will increase cost of the chips they make due licenses...

Meh, there is a ceiling on that. In the modern age if someone wants too much for a license (or they refuse to license ala Steve Jobs and the iPhone) you just do it anyway and take them to court and have the courts knock down that huge fee to something reasonable over a decade.

What matters more is maybe ARM will have a chance to actually compete going forward. We almost got to a point that having a "standard" ARM core in a SoC is a bad thing.