NVIDIA and SoftBank Group Announce Termination of Arm Acquisition

NVIDIA and SoftBank Group (SBG) announced the termination of the previously announced transaction whereby NVIDIA would acquire Arm from SBG. The parties agreed to terminate the Agreement because of significant regulatory challenges preventing the consummation of the transaction, despite good faith efforts by the parties. Arm will now start preparations 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 announced that in coordination with Arm, it will start preparations for a public offering of Arm within the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023. SBG believes Arm’s technology and intellectual property will continue to be at the center of mobile computing and the development of artificial intelligence.

“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, Representative Director, Corporate Officer, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank Group. “We will take this opportunity and start preparing to take Arm public, and to make even further progress. 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.“

NVIDIA and SBG had announced that they had entered into a definitive agreement, under which NVIDIA would acquire Arm from SoftBank, on September 13, 2020. Following the terms of the agreement, SBG will retain the $1.25 billion prepaid by NVIDIA, which will be recorded as profit in the fourth quarter, and NVIDIA will retain its 20-year Arm license.