SoftBank now also confirms it is exploring to sell ARM

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 08/12/2020 08:45 AM | source: seekingalpha.com | 20 comment(s)

We've written that NVIDIA is eying the purchase of ARM, several other parties already have shown interest as well. The one company that has remained silent about it all is the owner, Softbank. And they've just confirmed that ARM indeed is for sale.

Masayoshi Son, CEO of the Japanese group SoftBank, confirmed during a conversation regarding their quarterly figures that the company is contemplating selling Arm. Selling the entire company or part of it is an option, says the CEO.

A second possibility is to bring the company to the stock exchange ahead of schedule. Arm previously has been listed on the stock exchange, but when SoftBank bought the chip designer back in 2016, the company withdrew itself from the stock exchange. It then committed itself to bring back stock exchange in the year 2023. That can be brought forward, says Son.

NVIDIA would be in advanced talks to purchase the company, but legislation might be an issue as NVIDIA would become very powerful, as ARM holds a number of cross-licenses and patents. A takeover of Arm by Nvidia could be difficult due to competition rules. Then again, that goes for any company due to the sheer size of ARM itself.

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slyphnier
Senior Member

Posts: 813
Joined: 2009-11-30

#5817320 Posted on: 08/12/2020 04:04 PM

It's very weird that they would do this honestly. They have the largest CPU architecture in the world under their control, it should be a sort of a strategic asset, if nothing else.

if they corporate/company in great or good condition then absolutely they wont do it
except softbank been getting big loss, which is make them in bad situations

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/SoftBank-faces-a-130bn-question-Is-the-worst-over
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/1106/
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/08/12/business/corporate-business/softbank-targeting-10-billion-public-investing/

craycray
Senior Member

Posts: 168
Joined: 2015-12-18

#5817331 Posted on: 08/12/2020 04:41 PM

Their big problem right now is their Chinese division which has gone rogue, and is operating autonomously and disobeying all corporate orders. Google it.

schmidtbag
Senior Member

Posts: 7422
Joined: 2012-11-10

#5817332 Posted on: 08/12/2020 04:47 PM

In my opinion, only if the buyer is already integrally involved in relevant (related) business. Nvidia is 100%, but also any smartphone manufacturer would be, for example. Some general (technology) investment fund wouldn't be, unless it was majorly owned by a company that is.

That's probably why SoftBank is getting rid of it. I thought it was weird of them to have bought it in the first place.

At least ARM is too much for the American patent trolls. One of those would be even worse than Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Huawei, or something like that buying it.

Not sure about Huawei (they're not American anyway) but aren't the other 3 known for patent trolling? They're just a lot "quieter" about it. To my understanding, one of the reasons Nvidia bought out so many companies in the 90s and 00s was so they could attain patents. Wherever there isn't a patent, there's some proprietary technology instead. I'm less familiar with what ATI/AMD did. Intel has probably made deals with both companies to use their patents, because otherwise I don't see how they could build a competitive GPU.

craycray
Senior Member

Posts: 168
Joined: 2015-12-18

#5817333 Posted on: 08/12/2020 04:48 PM

Yep. There is always politics involved. So, they fired the Chinese CEO, but he refuses to leave!!!

A particular meme comes to mind.

JamesSneed
Senior Member

Posts: 1677
Joined: 2017-02-14

#5817369 Posted on: 08/12/2020 06:46 PM

That's probably why SoftBank is getting rid of it. I thought it was weird of them to have bought it in the first place.

Not sure about Huawei (they're not American anyway) but aren't the other 3 known for patent trolling? They're just a lot "quieter" about it. To my understanding, one of the reasons Nvidia bought out so many companies in the 90s and 00s was so they could attain patents. Wherever there isn't a patent, there's some proprietary technology instead. I'm less familiar with what ATI/AMD did. Intel has probably made deals with both companies to use their patents, because otherwise I don't see how they could build a competitive GPU.

I think you have a different opinion on what a patent trolls is than I do. I view the trolls as the companies that buy patents with no intent of actually making anything with the patent but instead intend to make the money back through litigation. What Nvidia did back in the 90's was just being super competitive jerks because they did at least make stuff with said patents.

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