After several years of legal battle, Nvidia finally renounces the acquisition of ARM, which will continue its IPO.
The outcome seemed inevitable, it is now official. The giant Nvidia will have to do without ARM. After the announcement of a takeover project of up to $40 billion in September 2020, the company, which specializes in manufacturing GPUs, intended to take control of the creator of the most popular chip architecture on the market. A situation that quickly worried international regulators – and in particular the FTC – who feared that this takeover would give Nvidia a hegemonic position in contradiction with antitrust laws. Remember that in addition to gaining power, this takeover could also have compromised the future plans of the competition, and in particular Apple, which has launched since 2020 in the in-house M1 chip foundry.
Nvidia will have to pay, ARM changes hands
After a long legal battle, and faced with a series “significant regulatory hurdles”, so Nvidia is finally giving up on what sounded like one of the biggest acquisitions in the tech industry. The news was first reported by the FinancialTimesbefore finally being confirmed at The Verge by SoftBank, the parent company of ARM. Note that cThis cancellation will not be free for Nvidiawhich will still have to pay 1.25 billion dollars in compensation for not having honored its offer.
For his part, ARM CEO Simon Segars made the decision to resign following this announcement, officially to save “his time and energy”. He will be replaced by Rene Haas, the company’s current IP manager, and above all a former Nvidia employee, the site confirmed. TechCrunch in an interview.
Deprived of an interesting takeover offer, ARM will therefore continue its journey alone. SoftBank thus confirmed that the company would pursue its re-listing. A way for the Japanese firm to limit the damage after a cancellation that sounds like a huge shortfall.
