Evaluation of SoftBank's Acquisition and Sale of ARM Holdings: A Financial Analysis

Overview of ARM Holdings and its Major Presence in Mobile Processing

Arm (Links to an external site.) Holdings Plc is a British semiconductor and software design company with its global headquarters in Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Realized in 170+ billion silicon chips, ARM is a major presence in mobile processing, with its processor and graphics technology used by Samsung, Apple and Huawei in their in-house microchips.

In September 2016, SoftBank, the Japanese conglomerate, acquired ARM Holdings for approximately £24 billion ($31 billion), the biggest ever purchase of a European technology company, leading Arm delisted from the London Stock Exchange. Four years later, SoftBank sold ARM Holdings to the American graphics chip specialist Nvidia at the deal values of £31.2 billion ($40 billion).

Suppose you were a newly appointed chief financial manager at SoftBank Group Corp, you are asked to evaluate its financial strategy and the acquisition of Arm Holdings Plc four years ago and its recent announcement of sale of Arm Holdings to Nvidia.

In your report to the board of director, you are to provide detailed analyses in the following areas:

1.Critical analysis of the financial strategy of SoftBank Group Corp

2.Evaluation of the deal performance of Arm in 2016 and its recent sale of Arm on SoftBank in 2020

3.The impact of these takeovers on the firm performance

4.Identify issues and challenges in cross-border investments

5.Make recommendation to set up future financial strategy

6.Other important areas as you identify

All the relevant key topics that we went through in this module will be helpful in the preparation of the case study. Financial information can be obtained from the OSIRIS (Links to an external site.) database accessible through the Anglia Ruskin University Library to an external site or via Bloomberg, annual reports, official company website or other professional resources. It would be better to obtain the five most recent years’ information as this will make your analysis more relevant. Good work will provide critical analyses rather than provide some general discussion without in-depth analysis.

Appendix shall include supporting information to help the senior management team evaluation the performance of the company. Please create your own small tables, diagrams and charts in your analysis and present professionally. DO NOT copy and paste annual report in the appendix.

Marking criteria:

• The level of content analyses of the financial strategy, takeover performance, the impact on firm performance, issues and challenges as well as recommendation for future financial strategy
• Clarity and coherence discussion throughout the case study
• The quality of the references using Harvard Reference Guide
• Professional presentation and use of professional language

Assignment submission guidance

1.Please submit your individual assignment on Turnitin and name your assignment submission using your SID number.

2.You should attach the Front Sheet before your own work, followed by title page and content page before the main body of your work.

3.You should adhere to the 3,000 word limitation. The actual word count excludes tables, charts, graphs, formulas, appendices and reference list. In sum, the word count refers only to the narratives from introduction to conclusion. Table can be used to present numbers and some brief points. Any misuse of tables with aims to avoid word limit will be subject to penalty. There is ±10% tolerance on word limit, but in worse scenarios of deliberately using tables to avoid word limit could lead to more penalty. There will be a 10% penalty if the assignment is too short. Please indicate the word count on the Front Sheet.

4.Your Module Tutor is available to support you in preparing your assignment. As it is a brand new module, there is no pass samples available. However, tutor will provide assignment support in teaching sessions and use discussion forum on Canvas to answer questions too. Please also note that you are welcome to send your work for comments at any time up until the end of Week 10 via email. Your tutor would be able to provide detailed feedback on 20% of your draft work. Please see faculty feedback policy on Canvas. If you prefer verbal feedback, your tutor will allocate some time to provide verbal feedback in teaching Week 11 and 12 workshops.