Softbank is preparing to take the chipmaker public instead.
On Monday, NVIDIA and SoftBank Group announced in a joint press release that they have terminated NVIDIA’s planned acquisition of chipmaker Arm from SoftBank. The two companies made the decision due to “significant regulatory challenges” in spite of “good faith efforts by the parties.”
NVIDIA and SoftBank first announced the Arm acquisition plan in September 2020. At the time, the deal was valued at $40 billion in cash and stock. In the 16 months since, NVIDIA’s share price has roughly doubled, boosting the value of the deal as high as $75 billion, according to The Guardian.
Per the original agreement, SoftBank will retain $1.25 billion prepaid by NVIDIA, and NVIDIA will retain a 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 CEO of NVIDIA, in the joint release. “Arm is at the center of the important dynamics in computing. Though we won’t be one company, we will partner closely with Arm… I expect Arm to be the most important CPU architecture of the next decade.”
SoftBank further announced it will prepare to take Arm public within the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2023.
“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, CEO of SoftBank. “We will take this opportunity and start preparing to take Arm public, and to make even further progress.”
Son added: “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.”
On Tuesday, Arm followed the announcement with one of its own: the appointment of a new CEO and member of the board, Rene Haas. Haas replaced Simon Segars, who will continue with Arm in an advisory capacity, according to a press release from the company.
