Qualcomm has officially dismissed its former CEO, Paul Jacobs, from its board of directors. Jacobs had apparently expressed his desire to take the company private, and had disclosed the acquisition bid to Softbank; the Japanese conglomerate that also owns ARM and Qualcomm.
“Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) today announced that Dr. Paul Jacobs will not be re-nominated to the Qualcomm Board of Directors at Qualcomm’s Annual Meeting of Stockholders on March 23, 2018. The Board reached that decision following his notification to the Board that he has decided to explore the possibility of making a proposal to acquire Qualcomm. The Board will consist of 10 directors effective as of the holding of the annual meeting.”
Jacobs’ desire to have Qualcomm go private isn’t an unreasonable one; private companies don’t have as many shareholders as a public company, managers of the former arrangement are less focused on increasing the value of the company in the short term, and it can have increased flexibility in short- and long-term business decisions. A perfect example of a company that went from public to private is Dell.
It’s been something of a tumultuous start of the year for Qualcomm; the semi-conductor maker came under the radar when the CEO of its competitor, Broadcom, entered into several hostile takeover bids, with the hopes of merging with one of the world’s biggest suppliers of mobile processors in the world.
To make matters more interesting, sources claim that Intel could possibly purchase Broadcom should the takeover become successful. That bid came to a halt, however, when the U.S. government crashed the party and put Broadcom’s endeavour to a stop, citing matters of national security as its reason for preventing the takeover.
(Source: Qualcomm via Hot Hardware)
