Marvell shares spike amid report SoftBank explored possible takeover

Investing.com - SoftBank Group Corp. explored a potential takeover of U.S. chipmaker Marvell Technology Inc (NASDAQ: MRVL) earlier this year with plans to merge it with Arm Holdings (NASDAQ: ARM), Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

Shares of Marvell surged by more than 9% in premarket U.S. trading following the report.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son was considering Marvell as a potential target on and off for years, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the deal.

A potential takeover could be one of the largest deals ever in the semiconductor industry, although the two sides were unable to reach an agreement. A Marvell takeover is largely in line with SoftBank’s ambitions to scale up its investment in artificial intelligence.

While the two are not in active negotiations, takeover interest could be revived, Bloomberg reported.

Marvel designs and builds chips and related hardware for data centers, and has benefited greatly from outsized demand for the fast-growing technology in the past three years.

The company currently manufactures custom AI and data center chips for e-commerce giant Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), as part of an exclusive deal.

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