Qualcomm Board to Discuss Next Steps After Broadcom Meeting

Qualcomm said its board will convene to discuss the next steps on Broadcom’s $121 billion acquisition offer after a meeting with its hostile suitor, giving no indication of whether the two chipmakers are closer to agreeing on the largest deal in the history of technology, according to Bloomberg.

"We met with representatives of Broadcom for two hours earlier today, and listened carefully to what they had to say," Qualcomm said in a statement after the meeting in New York. "The Qualcomm board will promptly meet to discuss the meeting and to determine next steps." While Qualcomm’s representatives listened, they didn’t engage with their counterparts, according to a person familiar with Broadcom’s view of how the meeting went.

Last week, Qualcomm’s board rejected Broadcom’s "best and final" proposal of $82 a share, which Qualcomm has dismissed as too low. The company had agreed to meet with Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, but warned that he would need to offer more and give better assurances that a transaction would get regulatory approval in a reasonable time frame. Tan replied that the newest bid was as high as he was going to go. The two sides face a showdown at a March 6 shareholder meeting, where Broadcom is asking Qualcomm investors to elect its board nominees in order to force the deal through.

At the meeting, Tan wasn’t given the chance to the appeal to the whole of Qualcomm’s board. The target company was represented by  Tom Horton, Jacobs and Mollenkopf from the board, and three others from the leadership team. Only Horton is an independent; the rest are long-serving executives, or in Jacobs’s case a former executive, who are committed to Qualcomm’s current strategy and plan to remain a standalone company.