SAN DIEGO — Broadcom trimmed its hostile takeover offer for Qualcomm on Wednesday in the wake of the San Diego company agreeing to pay more for Dutch automotive chip maker NXP Semiconductors.
But Broadcom said it remains committed to acquiring Qualcomm even with NXP in tow.
Broadcom’s new offer is $79 per share — $57 in cash and $22 in Broadcom stock — should NXP be included in the deal.
Its original offer of $82 per share stands if Qualcomm can’t close NXP, which makes chips used in cars and is a key cog in the San Diego company’s growth strategy to diversify its business beyond smartphones.
The $82 per share offer consists of $60 in cash and $22 in Broadcom stock.
Broadcom also urged Qualcomm shareholders to support the six alternative candidates it has nominated to Qualcomm’s board of directors — which would give it majority control of Qualcomm’s 11-member board of directors to push its hostile takeover through. Shareholders will vote for either Broadcom’s candidates or Qualcomm’s existing board at its annual shareholder meeting March 6.
The tweaks in Broadcom’s offer came after Qualcomm on Tuesday raised its price for NXP from $110 a share to $127.50 a share. The increase came after some activist NXP shareholders argued that the company was worth more today than it was when Qualcomm first agreed to buy it in October 2016.
Broadcom blasted the higher price as transferring $6.2 billion in value from Qualcomm shareholders to NXP shareholders — given Broadcom’s $82 per share offer.
Qualcomm’s NXP acquisition has received approval from eight global regulators but still needs the green light from China.
If completed, it would make Qualcomm more expensive for Broadcom to acquire, and likely complicate an already difficult antitrust review of the Qualcomm-Broadcom combination — which at $121 billion would be the largest semiconductor merger ever.
Qualcomm contends Broadcom’s offer is far too low and ignores its growth prospects from 5G and the expansion of cellular technologies beyond smartphones and into cars and other industries.
First Published: February 22, 2018, 12:19 a.m.
