Broadcom adds a few billion to its indecent proposal to Qualcomm

Re: Poor copy

It is already stated that after such a merger the Qualcomm organisation will be slimmed with an axe. Many employees are shareholders and, not surprisingly, are less then eager to sell. DOD will not be the onbly one to protest, Broadcom + Qualcomm even without buying NXP will dominate the market in mobile tech and damage competition.

On the other hand a Raspberry Pi with Snapdragon would be neat.

Re: Poor copy

Things have to be read in context. This is true of many languages, including English.

It is perfectly fine to say "it will appeal the decision" if the context surrounding it - "Qualcomm lost. It will appeal the decision." - is sufficient to supply the missing information as 'it' in this case would refer to Qualcomm, and 'the decision' would refer to the one it 'lost', which would imply against the decision.

Of course, if you want absolute precision (e.g. a legal document, contract) then you may want to avoid implicit context and always use specifics - "Qualcomm lost. Qualcomm will appeal against the decision."

But then, this is The Register, not a legal document such as a contract, so they are perfectly fine to use implicit context (as long as it is reasonable clear).

Since the normal course of action is to bit 30 percent above the stock value the buyer has already raised the value of the shares. It is then normal for the target to talk down the bid.

"You want to buy a company so you offer less than it's value, your intent to buy said company now pushes up the price meaning you end up paying more than you would if you had offered a higher price in the first place. I don't get it."

The reality is no one knows exactly what the company is actually worth. The current stock price is just the price of the last buy-sell of shares. You have no idea how much you'd have to offer to get a majority of the shareholders to sell. At one end of the spectrum, some shareholders will never sell, no matter the offer. At the other end of the spectrum, some will sell at the current stock price.

And you can always increase your offer, but you can never reduce it. So if the stock price goes up, after the offer is made, it looks like a majority of the shareholders want more money. So you can increase your offer. It doesn't always work that way. Sometimes, offers bring the stock price down, as everyone realizes that the stock is thinly traded and the current trading price doesn't represent the actual value of the company.

The reality is, that major shareholders will want to make a return per year better than the Dow Jones. So they will hold out for an offer that is better than that. So you'll want to look at when major shareholders bought into Qualcomm, and at what price.