Sprint owner SoftBank to buy ARM for $32.1 billion (updated)

Update, 04:00 EST: The acquisition of ARM by SoftBank has been officially confirmed. The purchase price is £24.3bn ($32.18 billion), a 43% premium over ARM’s stock last week. As part of the deal, SoftBank obliged itself to double ARM’s UK headcount by hiring an extra 1500 jobs and to keep ARM’s “successful partnership business model, culture and brand unchanged.”

Original post, 01:18 EST: Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, who owns US carrier Sprint, reportedly made a bid to buy ARM for $31 billion.

The deal, first reported by The Financial Times, will be announced today.

ARM is the British company that creates the basic chip designs used in the vast majority of mobile devices in the market. Its clients include Qualcomm, Samsung, Apple, MediaTek, and hundreds of other companies that license ARM’s chip architecture, its chip designs, or both.

ARM doesn’t make its own chips, but its clients used ARM designs to manufacture and ship over 60 billion chips to date.

Now SoftBank wants to own this influential company and is willing to pay a 43 percent premium on ARM’s stock price, for a total of £23.4 billion (around $31 billion).

According to WSJ, ARM has agreed to the takeover. However, it’s possible that SoftBank’s offer will be countered by other suitors interested in ARM’s vast IP portfolio. Apple, whose iPhone and iPad chips are based on ARM designs, may be interested. Intel has struggled for years to make a dent in ARM’s dominance in the mobile chip market, so an acquisition would make a lot of sense for it. Samsung, one of the world’s biggest chip makers, could be interested as well.

SoftBank is best known as one of the major Japanese carriers. It also owns 80 percent of Sprint, which it bought in 2013, as well as stakes in many tech companies from around the world. SoftBank recently agreed to sell its stakes in Alibaba and Supercell, the Finnish maker of mobile mega-hit Clash of Clans. Presumably, the money will help finance the ARM deal.

Sources familiar with the matter told WSJ that SoftBank sees the ARM acquisition as a way to establish itself as a key player in the Internet of Things field, including mobile, smart homes, wearables, and automotive.