Though his White House appearance was derided as a move to curry favour with Trump, the bet was that the Broadcom-Qualcomm was a done deal, particularly after Tan sweetened the offer in January with a higher stocks component, boosting the total price tag by US$16 billion.
SINGAPORE (Mar 16): When Tan Hock Eng, CEO of Broadcom, announced last November his company was redomiciling to the US, President Donald Trump praised him as “a great, great executive” and called Broadcom “one of the really great, great companies”.
Within hours of the White House meeting, Tan launched the largest takeover deal in tech’s history, a US$117 billion ($153 billion) cash-and-share bid for rival Qualcomm, known for its baseband 4G chips used in smartphones.
