Finimize - 😭 Nvidia abandons ARM

Hi Reader, here's what you need to know for February 9th in 3:15 minutes.

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Today's big stories

Nvidia’s planned acquisition of ARM has finally fallen through
NFTs have stayed firm even as crypto’s been crashing, and our analyst has a few theories why – Read Now
Pfizer sold $13 billion worth of vaccines last quarter

Hard Knock Life

What’s Going On Here?

Nvidia announced this week that it’s abandoning its acquisition of British chip designer ARM, and the chipmaker’s never looking back.

What Does This Mean?

Nvidia announced plans to buy ARM from Japanese conglomerate SoftBank back in September 2020, in hopes of expanding its reach across the entire semiconductor industry. But that lofty goal was also why the $40 billion deal was arguably doomed from the start, with some of ARM’s biggest customers – including Microsoft and Qualcomm – expressing worries that Nvidia would end up with too much control over chip designs. The US government seemed to agree, which might be why it moved to block the deal back in December.

So this week, Nvidia finally abandoned what would’ve been the biggest deal in the history of the chip industry. SoftBank, for its part, responded with plan B: it’s planning to list ARM on the stock market by March next year (tweet this).

Why Should I Care?

Zooming in: That’s got to hurt.
SoftBank will receive a breakup fee of up to $1.3 billion from the failed deal, but the company would’ve made a lot more had the deal gone through – more even than the $40 billion initially proposed. See, Nvidia was planning to buy ARM partly using its own stock, which has more than doubled since the agreement was first struck. That means the deal would now have actually been worth as much as $80 billion.

The bigger picture: SoftBank’s bad year.
SoftBank could’ve done with that cash: the company reported on Tuesday that its profit fell 97% last quarter versus the same time in 2020, after its investments in tech stocks plummeted amid looming interest rate hikes. This money, then, could’ve helped it buy back some of its shares – which have collapsed 45% in the last year – and boost the value of those left over. That’s left SoftBank scrambling to raise cash some other way, which might be why it’s now reportedly thinking of selling some of its substantial holdings in Chinese giant Alibaba.

You might also like: Could Nvidia become the world’s most valuable company?

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Analyst Take

Why Are NFTs Defying The Crypto Crash?

Reda, Analyst

What’s Going On Here?

By the end of January, bitcoin and ether had lost nearly half their value from their all-time highs.

And after the two biggest cryptocurrencies collapsed, the rest of the market wasn’t far behind.

That makes sense, since you’d expect speculative assets to be hit the hardest when central banks are beginning to tighten monetary policy.

The odd thing is, the top 100 NFT collections – arguably even more speculative – only lost 15% of their value in the same period, according to DappRadar.

In fact, “blue-chip” NFT collections – like Bored Ape Yacht Club, World of Women, and Doodles – have all actually increased in dollar value since November.

So what gives?

That’s today’s Insight: why NFTs are defying the crypto crash.

Read or listen to the Insight here

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