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Qualcomm on Monday once again extended its deadline for the completion of NXP Semiconductors acquisition which is still pending regulatory approval from China’s antitrust watchdog, having moved the new expiry date of its recently revised offer to Friday, March 9. The $44 billion takeover has been in the making since late 2016, with that prolonged process recently leading Qualcomm to upping its bid by fifteen-percent due to NXP’s improved performance over the same period. The San Diego, California-based chipmaker also hit back at its suitor Broadcom who criticized the delay of Qualcomm’s annual shareholder meeting which was scheduled to take place tomorrow but ended up being pushed back by at least a month at a direct request of the U.S. Treasury’s national security panel.
Broadcom said the decision of the government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States came as a surprise and Qualcomm never disclosed it communicated with the panel during their talks, adding that it also wasn’t fully transparent with investors by omitting that correspondence. Qualcomm dismissed those allegations, stating that CFIUS is an independent agency with jurisdiction over the matter with whom Broadcom itself has been communicating “for weeks,” adding that the company’s claim that it wasn’t aware of the panel’s interest in the case “has no basis in fact.” The tensions between the duo are likely to continue increasing moving forward as the delayed shareholder meeting was meant to set the stage for Broadcom’s attempted coup of Qualcomm’s board, with the Singapore-based tech giant seeking to install six of its own nominees to the chipmaker’s management and hence win a majority vote to go through with the proposed $117 billion merger.
Despite offering the largest consolidation in the tech industry‘s history, Broadcom’s proposal was repeatedly snubbed by Qualcomm even before being lowered by $4 billion in response to the strengthened NXP bid. The American company still believes the proposal materially undervalues its business by a significant margin, largely because of the temporary antitrust issues encountered by its licensing division in recent years which masked its long-term prospects. The firm is now expected to use the extra time until the shareholder meeting to work on resolving its licensing differences with Apple and wrapping up the NXP bid in order to convince more investors it’s better off on its own.