NVIDIA Terminates Plan to Acquire Arm Limited, SoftBank to Explore Public Offering

The FPS Review may receive a commission if you purchase something after clicking a link in this article.

Image: NVIDIA

NVIDIA has shared a press release confirming that it has given up on its drawn-out attempt of acquiring British semiconductor company Arm Ltd. from Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. Not surprisingly, NVIDIA cited “significant regulatory challenges” as the reason behind the termination of the planned acquisition, which was originally announced back in September 2020. SoftBank gets to keep the $1.25 billion that’s already been prepaid by NVIDIA.

NVIDIA and SoftBank Group Announce Termination of NVIDIA’s Acquisition of Arm Limited (NVIDIA Newsroom)

  • The parties agreed to terminate the Agreement because of significant regulatory challenges preventing the consummation of the transaction, despite good faith efforts by the parties.
  • SBG today also announced that, in coordination with Arm, it will start preparations for a public offering of Arm within the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023.
  • In accordance with the terms of the agreement, SBG will retain the $1.25 billion prepaid by NVIDIA, which will be recorded as profit in the fourth quarter, and NVIDIA will retain its 20-year Arm license.

“Arm has a bright future, and we’ll continue to support them as a proud licensee for decades to come,” said Jensen Huang, founder and chief executive officer of NVIDIA. “Arm is at the center of the important dynamics in computing. Though we won’t be one company, we will partner closely with Arm. The significant investments that Masa has made have positioned Arm to expand the reach of the Arm CPU beyond client computing to supercomputing, cloud, AI and robotics. I expect Arm to be the most important CPU architecture of the next decade.”

“Arm is becoming a center of innovation not only in the mobile phone revolution, but also in cloud computing, automotive, the Internet of Things and the metaverse, and has entered its second growth phase,” said Masayoshi Son, Representative Director, Corporate Officer, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of SoftBank Group Corp. “We will take this opportunity and start preparing to take Arm public, and to make even further progress.”

Mr. Son continued, “I want to thank Jensen and his talented team at NVIDIA for trying to bring together these two great companies and wish them all the success.”

Tsing Mui
News poster at The FPS Review.

Recent News