US semiconductor giant Qualcomm announced on Monday the acquisition of British company Alphawave for approximately $2.4bn, a strategic move to strengthen its capabilities in the field of artificial intelligence.
The cash offer amounts to 183 pence per Alphawave share, representing a premium of nearly 96% over the closing price on March 31, when Qualcomm first announced its interest. When the London markets opened, Alphawave's share price jumped 22%, approaching the proposed price.
US companies are stepping up their acquisitions of British assets, taking advantage of a market characterized by lower valuations and more moderate growth.
Alphawave designs semiconductor technologies for data centers, network infrastructure, and storage, which it sells through licensing. Since April, the company had been attracting interest from Qualcomm, as well as Arm, the chip designer controlled by SoftBank, due to its "SerDes" technology, which is key to accelerating data processing on chips, a central element in the development of AI. This technology also forms one of the foundations of the customised activities of Broadcom and Marvell, both valued at several billion dollars.
Arm ultimately withdrew from the talks, according to information published by Reuters in April.
Alongside its cash offer, Qualcomm had also proposed two alternative stock offers to Alphawave shareholders after obtaining several extensions of the deadline set by the UK takeover regulator.
Alphawave's management considers the terms of the cash offer to be "fair and reasonable" and plans to unanimously recommend it to its shareholders.
In addition, on Monday Alphawave finalized the sale of its stake in WiseWave, its joint venture with Chinese investment company Wise Road Capital, to existing state shareholders.
