Skip a multi-billion dollar deal in the market for chip. The Japanese financial giant Softbank shelved the sale of Arm, UK chip maker, to US giant Nvidia. The value of the transaction came to touch i 58 billion euros.
The positions of the regulators of the USA and Great Britain, who expressed doubts on the effects that the transaction would have had on competition and innovation in the semiconductor market, considered to be of strategic value.
“We have agreed to terminate the deal on February 8, 2022 – Softbank wrote in a note – due to the significant regulatory challenges that prevent the transaction from being completed, despite good faith efforts by the parties”.
At this point, strategy is changed and the next step, the press release continues, is “the beginning of preparations for a public offering by Arm by the end of the next Japanese fiscal year, which ends on March 31, 2023.
Had it gone through, the Softbank-Nvidia deal would have been the largest ever in the semiconductor field. The deal had been announced in September of 2020, sparking the concern of several customers who depend on Arm's chips for the production of their products, including Microsoft.
Concerns had also been raised in Great Britain, where there were fears of the impoverishment of the intellectual property of Arm, who is considered a national champion.
In December last year, the Federal Trade Commission – the US Antitrust – he had threatened to block the deal, seen as an obstacle to innovation.
Also today, SoftBank announced its results for the third quarter of the 2021-22 fiscal year, which closed with a net profit of 29 billion yen (equal to approximately 220 million euros), down 98% year on year.
SoftBank had acquired control of Arm in 2016 for 27 billion euros.
