Broadcom makes "best and final" $145bn offer for Qualcomm

Broadcom ups bid to $145 billion by increasing shares element of its offer

Broadcom has made a "best and final offer" for rival Qualcomm that would value the company at around $145 billion, after factoring in net debt, in a combination of cash and Broadcom stock.

However, the offer of Broadcom stock would mean that the deal will have to be formally approved by Broadcom's shareholders, as well as Qualcomm's.

The biggest-ever acquisition deal in history, it would also have to be approved by anti-trust regulators in the US and elsewhere.

Earlier bids had been snubbed the Qualcomm board as undervaluing the company, particularly the potential of Qualcomm's 5G technologies.

Broadcom has increased its offer from $70 per share to $82 per share - at the upper end of rumours circulating earlier today. The increase, though, is coming entirely in Broadcom shares, which may indicate that Broadcom simply can't raise the funds to increase the cash element of its offer on the open market.

It now remains to be seen, though, whether the board of Qualcomm change its tune. Broadcom's original offer had drawn an abrupt rejection: "No company is better positioned in mobile, IoT, automotive, edge computing and networking within the semiconductor industry.

"We are confident in our ability to create significant additional value for our stockholders as we continue our growth in these attractive segments and lead the transition to 5G," sniffed Qualcomm's chief executive Steve Mollenkopf, as the company "unanimously" rejected Broadcom's "unsolicited" proposal last year.

However, the big increase - albeit in Broadcom stock rather than greenbacks - may persuade Mollenkopf and Qualcomm's shareholders to take the money (and Broadom stock) and run.

Combined, the two firms would dominate a major part of the mobile component sector, while consolidation of their product sets would also slash choice and almost certainly raise prices.

Broadcom, too, has a reputation more for cost-cutting than investing in research and development. Qualcomm, while aggressively competitive, has benefit from heavy investment in ARM chip design and 5G technology.

It would also create quite an indigestion-ridden behemoth.

On the Qualcomm side, the deal would follow swiftly on from Qualcomm's own $47 billion acquisition of NXP Semiconductors (formerly Philips Semiconductors, which only acquired Freescale Semiconductors in 2015). Qualcomm's deal for NXP is currently going through, but Broadcom has pledged to complete this deal if/when it acquires Qualcomm.

Broadcom meanwhile - formerly Avago Technologies - has only just finished the $37 billion acquisition engineered in May 2015, completed in January 2016, when Avago tookover Broadcom and adopted Broadcom's better-known name into the bargain.

Like Broadcom's offer for Qualcomm, that deal had been financed by a combination of cash and shares.

Latterly, it has completed a more modest, $5.5 billion deal to acquire Brocade Communications, best known for its fibre channel storage area networking products.