Softbank’s ARM Holdings acquisition comes to a close

Multinational telecommunication and internet corporation Softbank has closed the acquisition of British semiconductor and mobile microprocessor company, ARM for $32 billion (approx). The acquisition was announced in the month of July this year in order to boost the Internet of Things (IoT) portfolio. Following to the completion of the acquisition, ARM will be delisted from the London Stock Exchange as of September 6, 2016. The financial results of ARM will be merged and reflected in Softbank’s consolidated financial statements after the acquisition.

According to a report in FirstPost, SoftBank sold off a part of its stake in Alibaba for $7.9 billion and its entire stake in Supercell for $8.6 billion in order to raise money for the acquisition. Softbank and Alibaba formed an alliance in May 2016 to extend its cloud-computing services business to Japanese customers.

Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO, SoftBank Group said, “We feel that it is appropriate to explain why the two companies share a far more exciting future together. The SoftBank Group and ARM have enabled technology that is at the heart of a computing and connectivity revolution. Every day, more than 40 million ARM-based chips are shipped by ARM partners into products enabling consumers and businesses around the world.”

Every day, the SoftBank Group provides mobile and fixed-line connectivity to over 100 million people and devices in Japan and the U.S., offers numerous Internet services and is pioneering new ventures in AI, smart robotics and IoT.

 

ARM CEO @simonsegars pens letter w/ @SoftBank Chairman & CEO Masayoshi Son on historic day: https://t.co/6AInkMirek pic.twitter.com/WTjpniiDfs

— Arm Holdings (@ArmHoldings) September 6, 2016

Softbank claims that it will expand the technology that ARM offers through a wider focus on research and development across the range of its processor designs, systems and softwares, physical IP, security technologies, wireless and smart connected platforms. ARM’s senior team will remain in place. It also claims that it will at least double the number of ARM employees in the U.K. over the next five years.