Broadcom officially withdraws $117B Qualcomm offer
Broadcom will not fight President Trump's executive order squashing the deal.
- SABEW Best in Business 2011 Award for Breaking News Coverage, Eddie Award in 2020 for 5G coverage, runner-up National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award for culture analysis.
What would have been technology's biggest merger is no more.
Broadcom, which makes chips for everything from TV set-top boxes to servers, said Wednesday it has withdrawn its $117 billion bid to acquire Qualcomm, the world's largest maker of chips for smartphones. The move comes two days after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order blocking the merger, effectively killing the deal.
Broadcom won't be getting its hands on Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor franchise.
The withdrawal marks the end of the twisting soap opera that was Broadcom's pursuit of Qualcomm. Singapore-based Broadcom had hoped to create a chip juggernaut by merging the two businesses, but Qualcomm initially fought the takeover, arguing the offer wasn't sufficient. In the last few weeks, San Diego-based Qualcomm warmed up to the idea of a merger, but still argued for a higher price tag.
The intervention by the Treasury Department's Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, or CFIUS, and by President Trump came, in an unusual turn of events, even before a deal was struck between the two companies. Trump cited national security as his reason for killing the deal, with CFIUS specifically warning about the lack of a major US player in 5G, the next-generation of wireless technology.
Qualcomm declined to comment.
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