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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday March 11 2018, @01:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the pretty-please dept.

Broadcom has sent a letter to Congress:

Broadcom Limited said, in a letter to Members of Congress regarding its offer to acquire Qualcomm Inc., that it is committed to making the United States the global leader in 5G by focusing resources and strengthening leadership in this area. Any notion that a combined Broadcom-Qualcomm would slash funding or cede leadership in 5G is completely unfounded. In addition, Broadcom will not sell any critical national security assets to any foreign companies. Of course, any dispositions of assets to foreign buyers would be themselves subject to CFIUS review.

Broadcom is also pledging to create a new $1.5 billion fund with a focus on innovation to train and educate the next generation of RF engineers in the United States. This will ensure America's continued leadership in future wireless technology.

Broadcom also said it will work closely with the United States government as it drives to achieve and sustain this global leadership in 5G and beyond.

Broadcom also smeared Qualcomm's "anticompetitive licensing practices", and created an infographic "to set the record straight about Qualcomm's business relationships in China".

Also at WSJ and CNBC.

See also: The incredible multi-dimensional chess of Qualcomm vs. Broadcom

Previously: Broadcom's Hostile Takeover Attempt of Qualcomm Delayed by U.S. Government Panel


Original Submission

Related Stories

Broadcom's Hostile Takeover Attempt of Qualcomm Delayed by U.S. Government Panel 5 comments

Qualcomm's board members, including several seats controlled by Broadcom, were set to vote on Broadcom's acquisition attempt on Tuesday. However, the annual shareholder meeting has been postponed for 30 days by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States:

Broadcom Ltd. is on course to win all six of the seats it's seeking on Qualcomm Inc.'s board, giving it a majority to push forward with its hostile takeover even as a U.S. government panel forced a delay of the final tally amid concerns about the deal's threats to national security.

Based on a count of more than half of the votes already cast, Broadcom would win a majority of Qualcomm's board seats, according to information obtained by Bloomberg. If that result holds up when the final vote takes place, Broadcom would have a mandate to overturn Qualcomm management's opposition to the $117 billion deal. Representatives for Broadcom and Qualcomm declined to comment.

The Committee is taking preemptive action this time:

The panel, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or Cfius, typically works behind closed doors and reviews deals only after they are announced. In the case of Qualcomm, the panel, which includes representatives from multiple government agencies, is looking at the acquisition before it is complete. In practice, reviews by Cfius often lead to the demise of deals.

[...] Already, Cfius has taken a more proactive role, blocking several major deals by Chinese buyers in recent months. Among them were proposed acquisitions of MoneyGram, a money transfer company, and Lattice Semiconductor.

Previously: President Trump Blocks Acquisition of Lattice Semiconductor
Broadcom Raises Bid for Qualcomm to $121 Billion


Original Submission

Broadcom's Attempted Acquisition of Qualcomm Blocked on National Security Grounds 13 comments

Broadcom's quest to acquire Qualcomm has come to a screeching halt:

President Trump on Monday blocked Broadcom's $117 billion bid for the chip maker Qualcomm, citing national security concerns and sending a clear signal that he was willing to take extraordinary measures to punctuate his administration's increasingly protectionist stance. In a presidential order, Mr. Trump said there was "credible evidence" that led him to believe that if Singapore-based Broadcom were to acquire control of Qualcomm, which is based in San Diego, it "might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States."

[...] The move follows one by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which typically works behind closed doors and reviews deals only after they are announced, earlier this month to stall Broadcom's bid because of national security concerns. [...] The president said his decision had been based on the review by the committee, which focused on how Broadcom's purchase of Qualcomm might affect next-generation high-speed mobile networks known as 5G. The panel said that the leadership of Qualcomm, which makes wireless chips and also licenses key wireless patents, was too important to put into hands of a company with links to China. The committee argued that economic leadership in 5G was also a national security interest.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has just put a lot of companies on notice.

Also at CNN and LA Times.

Previously: Broadcom's Hostile Takeover Attempt of Qualcomm Delayed by U.S. Government Panel
Broadcom Pleads its Qualcomm Case to Congress

Related: President Trump Blocks Acquisition of Lattice Semiconductor
U.S. Lawmakers Urge AT&T to Cut Ties With Huawei
U.S. Government Reportedly Wants to Build a 5G Network to Thwart Chinese Spying
U.S. Rejects Chinese Takeover of the Chicago Stock Exchange


Original Submission

Broadcom is Officially a U.S. Company Now, But Why Was its Attempt to Acquire Qualcomm Blocked? 21 comments

Broadcom has moved back to the U.S. from Singapore, which could allow it to circumvent the mighty power of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which blocked its takeover attempt of Qualcomm last month. The company's co-headquarters in San Jose, California will become the sole headquarters of the redomiciled company:

Broadcom said on Wednesday it had completed its move back to the United States from Singapore, weeks after President Donald Trump blocked its $117 billion offer to buy Qualcomm on national security grounds.

Broadcom, which was a U.S. company until it was bought in 2016 by Singapore's Avago, had announced its plan to redomicile on Nov. 2, days before making its first offer for Qualcomm.

[...] The move to the United States could allow Broadcom to buy U.S. companies without coming under the scrutiny of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which has the power to stop deals that could harm national security.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @05:04PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @05:04PM (#650962)

    To add to this. This little rumor popped up. https://www.investors.com/news/intel-could-hijack-qualcomm-takeover-by-buying-broadcom-wsj/ [investors.com]

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @05:26PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @05:26PM (#650967)

      This would put Qualcomm under both NSA and GCHQ authorization for spying, making it easy for them to backdoor a majority of cellphones worldwide. If you thought all those holes in 4G LTE wasn't bad enough, imagine when they can play he said she said over who put the backdoors in the cryptographically locked down baseband firmware that just happens to control bootstrapping of the memory ranges for the ARM cpu cores, in addition to directly controlling the camera, bluetooth, microphone and speaker.

      A merger between broadcom and qualcomm should concern everyone, a three way merger between them and intel... well just when you thought chipzilla was too big, he can now destroy all of japan in a single swipe of his tail.... or is that America? Maybe China, given how many of their phones use qualcomm chips...

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:00PM (3 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:00PM (#650990) Journal

      I doubt blowing $100 billion or more on Broadcom is going to help Intel in the long run. It doesn't even muscle them into the high-end ARM SoC market.

      http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2018/03/qualcomm_broadcom_intel_sounds.html [oregonlive.com]

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      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:17PM (1 child)

        by frojack (1554) on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:17PM (#651021) Journal

        Exactly.
        Broadcom is fabless from what I hear.

        So Intel would get nothing but patents and designs, which aren't that hard to come by.

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        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @09:34PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @09:34PM (#651088)

          So is Qualcomm.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @09:31PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @09:31PM (#651086)

        It is "if bcom buys qcom'. That would put Intel squarely in the middle of the cell market and WiFI market. I think you wildly underestimate exactly how big qualcomm and broadcom are. Between those two you have most of the cell market. Intel has tried to crack that nut for years and Apple is their first real big break into that market in years. Pretty much every high end SoC cell chip has a good chunk of their tech in them if not their chips. The only real exception to that is Apple with the other 40% of the market. Intel is shipping ~100M chips a year. Qualcomm by itself ships at least ~200M a year.

        I personally own both Intel and Qualcomm. They are both very good chip companies. But QCOM is the one with the better setup for the future. BCOM is looking to gut them and ride the licensing model. My opinion is to look for them to spin off QCT quickly once they buy them. Which is high touch. The patents is low touch. I could see Intel wanting to get that existing chip business. As it more closely matches their existing business and they can bring the fabs in house. Look for TMSC and Samsung to take a hit if that happens.

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday March 12 2018, @04:59PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 12 2018, @04:59PM (#651421) Journal

    When Broadcom pleads before Congress, does it cry real tears made of cash?

    Oh, the depths of my sympathy for them could be filled by one layer of scotch tape.

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