SoftBank President and CEO Masayoshi Son moved quickly to push his company's $32.1 billion deal to acquire ARM on Monday, urging analysts and investors at a London conference to "listen to the force." Noting that he is the company's largest shareholder, Son plugged the emergence of the IoT, saying investors should capitalize on a "paradigm shift" in technology as connectivity becomes ubiquitous.
But shares of SoftBank plunged anyway Tuesday when trading resumed following a Monday holiday in Japan, dropping more than 10 percent and wiping out $7 billion in market capitalization. Investors and analysts appear to be concerned that ARM's expertise in designing semiconductors isn't in SoftBank's wheelhouse and may not be easily aligned with its existing businesses.
It's far too early to accurately predict what the acquisition might mean for Sprint, which continues to struggle to turn things around. But some analysts in the U.S. are already questioning whether buying ARM might signal that SoftBank's focus on its U.S. carrier is beginning to shift. Article