Softbank drops Arm to Nvidia sale due to regulatory roadblocks.
SANTA CLARA, Calif., and TOKYO, Japan – February 8, 2022 – NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) and SoftBank Group Corp. (“SBG” or “SoftBank”) announced today that the previously announced deal in which NVIDIA would acquire Arm Limited (“Arm”) from SBG has been terminated. Despite their best efforts, the parties agreed to terminate the Agreement due to major regulatory difficulties that prevented the transaction from being completed. Arm will now begin the process of preparing for a public offering.
“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.”
SBG also stated today that it will begin preparations for an Arm public offering in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023, in collaboration with Arm. SBG believes Arm’s technology and intellectual property will remain at the forefront of mobile computing and artificial intelligence development.
“Arm is becoming a center of innovation not only in the mobile computing 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.
On September 13, 2020, NVIDIA and SoftBank announced that they had reached a definitive agreement under which NVIDIA would buy Arm from SoftBank. SBG* will keep the $1.25 billion prepaid by NVIDIA, which will be recognized as profit in the fourth quarter, and NVIDIA will keep its 20-year Arm license, according to the terms of the agreement.