Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ:MRVL) shares gained nearly 4% in early trading on Thursday after reports that Japan’s SoftBank Group explored a potential takeover of the chipmaker several months ago, according to Bloomberg.
Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s founder, was potentially interested in acquiring Marvell to merge it with semiconductor designer Arm Holdings, in which SoftBank has a majority stake, but the two sides couldn’t reach an agreement on terms, the media outlet noted, citing people familiar with the matter.
The discussions were thought to be part of SoftBank's broader plan to strengthen its AI ecosystem through ownership of chip-related assets.
The potential takeover could be one of the largest deals ever in the semiconductor industry.
Marvel designs and builds chips and related hardware for data centers and is currently manufacturing custom AI and data center chips for Amazon.
Marvell Technology stock has dropped about 17% year to date, bucking the rising AI chip demand trend.