Broadcom Buyout offer

And so far, the smart people I know are voting no.

As a major electronics company in mobile, and a driver of 5G, This deserves to be watched.


Shares of Qualcomm Inc. QCOM, +0.56% surged 4.4% in premarket trade Monday, after Broadcom Ltd. AVGO, -1.56% boosted its bid to buy the semiconductor maker by 17% to its "best and final offer" of $82 a share. The bid consists of $60 a share in cash and the rest in Broadcom stock. Reuters had reported on Sunday that an increased bid was planned.

Marketwatch

NewYorkTimes

“Given well-known U.S. national security concerns about Huawei and other Chinese telecommunications companies, a shift to Chinese dominance in 5G would have substantial negative national security consequences for the United States,” a CFIUS official wrote in a March 5 letter to the companies’ lawyers that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Broadcom appeared to be laying the groundwork to get ahead of potential national-security concerns even before it launched its initial bid for Qualcomm. In a televised appearance last November with President Donald Trump at the White House, Broadcom’s Mr. Tan announced plans to redomicile his Singapore-based company to the U.S., a move that could have rendered CFIUS review inapplicable. Mr. Trump lavished praise on Mr. Tan, calling him “a great, great executive” and saying Broadcom was “one of the really great, great companies.”

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Days later, Mr. Tan launched an unsolicited $105 billion bid for Qualcomm. Broadcom raised that to more than $120 billion at one point, then cut it back again to the current $117 billion offer after Qualcomm raised its separate bid for European giant NXP Semiconductors NV.

The 5G Future

I've never been more optimistic. 

Qualcomm

5G will do more than turbocharge our smartphones (though, it’ll certainly do that), it’ll enable the creation of whole new industries, have an economic impact measured in trillions*, and lay the foundation for technologies we’re only beginning to think about.

Far from a speculative vision of the future, the first mobile 5G NR trials will begin in just a few months, paving the way to commercial availability in 2019. Our Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 5G Modem, which was used to demonstrate the world’s first 5G data connection, is helping make that happen. And we’re working with leading OEMs around the world to develop Snapdragon X50-powered smartphones, mobile hotspots, Always Connected PCs, and immersive head-mounted VR displays in time for 5G’s arrival.

As we work to help build the global 5G infrastructure, we continue to evolve LTE. A pivotal part of this effort will be the just-announced Qualcomm Snapdragon X24LTE modem, which makes its public debut at MWC. Snapdragon X24 is our third-generation Gigabit LTE modem that can deliver lightning-fast download speeds up to 2 Gbps. Snapdragon X24 and other Gigabit LTE modems will help ensure a smooth transition into 5G by complementing Snapdragon X50 to provide multimode 4G/5G capability on the same device.