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
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:39PM (1 child)
You're not really clear. Are you for or against the creation of yet another too-big-to-fail corporation, which will send profits abroad but get US tax breaks and could have to be saved by the US taxpayer because many of the chips made by the monopoly will end up in strategic assets?
Capitalism doesn't care about anything but ROI. Yo udon't need to love Marx to witness how it's regularly an issue.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:45PM
The whole notion of an organization being declared "too big to fail" and thereby "saved by the US taxpayer" is a clear example of anti-capitalism; indeed, they are a clear example of the U.S. government engaging in anti-capitalism.
It's anti-capitalism all the way down, folks.