ARM being bought by the Japanese?!

(see title)

If the shareholders accept the offer.
Given that it’s likely a good proportion of the shares are not owned by feckless idiots (typical shareholders), it isn’t a done deal.

Of course the twerps in government hold their hands up & say ‘Nothing we can do’.

All the promises being made about the future aren’t worth the paper they’re not written on :(

Of course the twerps in government hold their hands up & say ‘Nothing we can do’.

They’re busy breaking the country in other ways.

As for the shareholders, isn’t the offer something like 46% over value? It’s as if Softbank are making an offer “they can’t refuse”, plus stomping on the likes of Intel along the way…

What I find interesting is that Softbank are not chip bakers. Why do they want ARM, and why now?

Actually, the twerps in Government have been on the radio saying what a wonderful idea the sale is! Their view seems to be that this shows ’"The UK is still open for business." Thus showing they have no clue about any distinction between being able to make something to sell and selling off the factory!

Such a sale means almost certainly that the profits and any tax will ‘vanish’ abroad. And the jobs may duly do the same. Leaving us simply to buy back instances of the use of the IPR.

The sale seems to be now because a drop in the value of the pound means the price to be paid by someone outwith the UK has fallen.

The UK Government facilitating and praising yet another example of “selling off the family silver factory”.

The value here is in the IPR and skills. Things that can easily be moved if our economy goes into the skip. Shareholders will sell off if they’re happy it is a good deal for them, regardless of any effect on the UK.

What I find interesting is that Softbank are not chip bakers.

Well, neither are ARM :-)

Why do they want ARM, and why now?

Money, world domination, the usual stuff that mega-corps are interested in.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36822806

Sources close to the deal say the Japanese company considers ARM well placed to exploit the so called “internet of things” which may see microchips embedded in whole new categories of household and business devices.

What I don’t get is that Softbank are $100bn in debt, so how do they suddenly find $25bn to buy ARM?

Maybe they want to buy ARM “cheaply” and sell them on quickly for a profit. Debt is only for the little people, anyway. Once you get to sums that large, it’s not debt in the normal sense. At least, that’s how it seems to me.

Another British success story: once it got large enough, someone came and bought it. Champagne all round.

Does anyone think a Japanese company like this would be sold off to a ‘foreign’ owner and their governement would welcome it as if it were a “success”?

Thousands of companies are sold every day. The company I work for was sold a few weeks ago. Someone buys, someone sells. You just carry on. Sometimes, the new owner does a better job than the old owner. Sometimes, everything just stays the same (if the company has done a good job until now). Sometimes, the new owner does a worse job, and the new owner becomes the next old owner.

It’s not as if ARM is of strategic importance to the British Empire, is it? So what should the politicians do, apart from ending free markets once and for all and declaring ownership of the state of all companies?

It’s not as if ARM is of strategic importance to the British Empire, is it? So what should the politicians do, apart from ending free markets once and for all and declaring ownership of the state of all companies?

The British Empire isn’t even a cinema these days. In reality there are many shades of judgement and law between ‘ban everything’ and ‘allow everything’. Governments do sometimes intervene. Some takeovers get blocked. This really isn’t a synonym for “state ownership”, either.

BTW You didn’t answer my actual question.

BTW You didn’t answer my actual question.

Why do you think my post was an answer to one of your posts?

Anyway, if you really like an answer from me, here it is:

Does anyone think a Japanese company like this would be sold off to a ‘foreign’ owner and their governement would welcome it as if it were a “success”?

Since the Japanese government does not seem to know anything about the economy: most likely they would revert to the usual “Katzenjammer” of the bad bad multi national enterprises – the swan song that never changed anything, but seems to resonate well with many simple-minded voters. Can be witnessed every time a foreign company (or, shock horror, an investment fund, or even worse, a hedge fund) buys a fairly-well-known German company – last time was probably Kuka, before that Putzmeister. Or maybe Opel, but that was 1929 already, so nobody seems to remember.

Does anyone think a Japanese company like this would be sold off to a ‘foreign’ owner and their governement would welcome it as if it were a “success”?

Probably not.
But then, the British seem to have a penchant for flogging off everything to whoever will pay.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2129507/Britain-sale-Uniquely-world-Britain-sold-half-companies-foreigners-And-paying-price.html – and note, this is from April 2012.

Sources close to the deal say the Japanese company considers ARM well placed to exploit the so called “internet of things” which may see microchips embedded in whole new categories of household and business devices.

Oh wow, the BBC almost researched something. If they actually had a tech reporter with a clue they’d know that ARM pretty much IS embedded in all of the “Internet of Things”.
Mind you they did find one that could spell to do the article.

However, Stuart Chambers, ARM chairman since March 2014, is no stranger to making it big in Japan. He was responsible for selling Pilkington, another blue chip UK company, to Nippon Sheet Glass in 2006.

I think the police would say “he’s got form”

This isn’t great news though I guess it was only a matter of time. We should also be glad how far ARM have come over the years. It makes me wonder if this event will alter the future of RISC OS. Hopefully ARM are efficient enough and focused enough on chip design that they won’t get broken up or asset stripped, but you have to wonder if their new owners will try to alter their direction.

Regarding the Beeb articles, I was less than impressed with their usual derision of Acorn and bias towards Apple http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36826095

So, was ARM a success from the start? Hardly …

The resulting computers – the Acorn Archimedes series – struggled to sell. So, Acorn came up with a different business plan.

It created a joint venture with Apple, called ARM Holdings, to make a chip for the American company’s first handheld computer, the Newton, which launched in 1993. It also flopped. But there was, eventually, a silver lining.

In their article, the silver lining is mainly accredited to Apple.

Given that it’s likely a good proportion of the shares are not owned by feckless idiots (typical shareholders), it isn’t a done deal.

As for the shareholders, isn’t the offer something like 46% over value? It’s as if Softbank are making an offer “they can’t refuse”, plus stomping on the likes of Intel along the way…

Quite a lot of shareholders are employees, as ARM always had quite a good share ownership scheme. There will also be former Acorn shareholders who kept the ARM shares they got in exchange when Acorn was shut down.

I’ve never understood how a takeover works: what are the actual options for shareholders?

Edit: found an article explaining the process

Found this video where Simon Segars Answers Questions

Note that the UK does have legislation/regulations that allow government to block takeovers.

Note also that our shiney new PM has said in the past that she would have wanted to block foreign takeovers
like the ‘Cadburys’ example.

Note that in such cases the (USA) company that took over made all kinds of promises about keeping on
th workforce, etc,… which they duly binned once they owned the ex-UK company. Instead they use
it as a tax dodge, a way to reduce their competition, and outsourced jobs elsewhere.

Note that despite her previous comments about such takeovers, the new(old) government has essentially
used this one as PR to claim “all is well despite brexit”.

Now being bought by Nvidia?:

Feb 12, 2021, Microsoft, Google, and Qualcomm are reportedly nervous about Nvidia acquiring Arm.
Global regulators are looking into it.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/12/22280262/qualcomm-microsoft-google-nvidia-arm-acquisition-investigations-concerns