It would have occurred anyways... Anytime MnA happens, there will be steps to make the business more efficient and reduce redundancy, right or wrong.

Cutting redundant managers and officers is always a good thing.

I'll gonna make a bold claim here that will not become apparent for some time, but I think will cease to be a reality if it does not happen within 3 years, so, there is my time limit. So strong is my claim, I am going to make a stock market play in favour that Facebook will make a play for Arm. Here's my logic: Facebook want to have devices as ubiquitous as smart phones, and want to control the production of the devices, and its software. This would give them the power to: (1) Have their own developer SDK licence for said devices, chargeable. Like Apple. (2) Control the OS, control the marketplace, control the commission. Like Apple. (3) Greatly lower the cost of design(s), and to control the design(s). Like Apple. A few choice quotes from the following news release: https://www.arm.com/company/news/2022/02/arm-appoints-rene-haas-as-ceo "“As the innovators of the industry’s most pervasive compute architecture, Arm changed lives around the globe by delivering the technology at the heart of the smartphone revolution. We are now uniquely positioned to address the diverse demands of AI, cloud, IoT, automotive and the Metaverse. And with the uncertainty of the past several months behind us, we are emboldened by a renewed energy to move into a growth strategy and change lives around the world―again.” Y'see, the thing about PR pieces is the person working in PR is still a human and would've been given a list of what the company is working on, against what the market is going to be in the future. This would have been chronological. So, the last thing listed is 'Metaverse'. And this https://www.reuters.com/business/softbanks-66-bln-sale-arm-nvidia-collapses-ft-2022-02-08/ "On a company earnings call on Tuesday, SoftBank CEO Son, who had said the company initially considered listing Arm but opted to sell it instead due to the pandemic, sought to put a positive spin on the scrapped sale....He said Arm would power revolutions in areas such as cloud computing and the metaverse and that it would be the most significant IPO the chip industry has ever seen." Again, it is the last thing stated. Then, you got their recent acquisitions:- 2018 Treasure Data ($600 million acquisition), provides enterprise data management software for device-to-data IoT platform Stream Technologies, provides connectivity management platform and GSM connectivity And, Softbank strip-mined Treasure Data: https://www.zdnet.com/article/arm-proposes-spinning-off-iot-businesses-into-new-softbank-owned-entities/ - which would leave Arm open, minimizing the possibility of mergers being questioned. When I say Facebook, I really mean Meta, of course, but share prices of FB are affected more. So that's my claim, Meta or something ZB owns; will make the play when the company floats on the nasdaq. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/analysis-softbanks-choice-of-new-york-for-arm-listing-deals-a-blow-to-london I think it truly is the play that no one will see coming. I'm calling it.

@Loobyluggs I see where you're coming from. The only reason why I have any hesitation is because Meta could relatively effortlessly just use RISC-V. Nvidia wanted to buy ARM because they and their competitors were so heavily invested in ARM that it would be such a huge profit to them and such a huge loss if they went with anything else. If Meta just wants to create their own platform, they don't need ARM for that. Granted, Facebook would profit from ARM, but they would have just as hard of a time buying ARM than Nvidia. Sure, Facebook has the advantage of not being a chip designer/manufacturer, so this wouldn't be seen as a monopolistic/anticompetitive practice like it was with Nvidia, but they would be met with the same kind of resistance that Nvidia faced, except they would also have Nvidia's lobbying to deal with. None of this is to say you are wrong that Facebook will attempt this, but the public likely won't hear enough about it.

Shouldn`t ARM be a money printing machine nowadays? Or Softbank`s financial situation is so dire that they have to resort to this...

schmidtbag:

@Loobyluggs I see where you're coming from. The only reason why I have any hesitation is because Meta could relatively effortlessly just use RISC-V. Nvidia wanted to buy ARM because they and their competitors were so heavily invested in ARM that it would be such a huge profit to them and such a huge loss if they went with anything else. If Meta just wants to create their own platform, they don't need ARM for that. Granted, Facebook would profit from ARM, but they would have just as hard of a time buying ARM than Nvidia. Sure, Facebook has the advantage of not being a chip designer/manufacturer, so this wouldn't be seen as a monopolistic/anticompetitive practice like it was with Nvidia, but they would be met with the same kind of resistance that Nvidia faced, except they would also have Nvidia's lobbying to deal with. None of this is to say you are wrong that Facebook will attempt this, but the public likely won't hear enough about it.

The new Arm CEO used to work at nvidia, but I think meta/FB will make a move now that the EU and UK has forced the move to IPO on nasdaq, which is the smarter move. Yeah, I can easily be wrong on this, but, MZ is playing a long game with Meta, which can write off a lot of tax with investments. It is the smart play, and, MZ wants to be Steve Jobs more than Bill Gates, and more than EM tries to be.

I think your reasoning is sound. However, Nvidia would put a stop to it. I'd bet the other way, that Nvidia makes a second bid and succeeds this time. Either that, or Nvidia tries to buy an ARM design outright.

"Well, what do you do here?" "I repeat what my boss says to the engineers."

I see M$ or Apple buying them out before Meta but...

H83:

Shouldn`t ARM be a money printing machine nowadays? Or Softbank`s financial situation is so dire that they have to resort to this...

Softbank isn't a company that has any interest or experience in transitioning essentially a small cpu design company to a full on Intel/AMD competitor. ARM can't do it themselves, hell they can't even manage their own offices (China gone AWOL somehow legally with all the ARM designs). I suspect as a company they aren't in a great place.

Dribble:

Softbank isn't a company that has any interest or experience in transitioning essentially a small cpu design company to a full on Intel/AMD competitor. ARM can't do it themselves, hell they can't even manage their own offices (China gone AWOL somehow legally with all the ARM designs). I suspect as a company they aren't in a great place.

I understand Softbank being unable to run a company like ARM but i find hard to understand how the directors of ARM can run the company properly with the huge success they are having. About the China offices, i read about them a few months ago, and it´s so strange and silly, it´s hard to believe it happened... I wonder if the chinese government interfered so they could get ARMs tasty designs.

Valken:

I see M$ or Apple buying them out before Meta but...

Anything is possible, but I am not going to place a bet on it - M$ is more focused on monthly residuals and long term storage, and Apple are mostly about doing to opposite of what Steve Jobs said to do, which is to have as many products as possible, making the difference between them hard to discern. Lenovo would make more sense than Apple, seeing how they are #1 in the pc market, placed above Dell, HP etc. I miss Steve Jobs...one iphone, one ipad, one imac; one ipod. simple, clean Apple product line up that made sense. When everything you have is special, nothing is.