Paul Jacobs lost his position as the CEO of Qualcomm last month when the company shuffled its board of directors, after increasingly hostile takeover attempts by Singapore-based semiconductor company Broadcom, which only stopped after President Trump stepped in.
Soon after, Jacobs was reported to be looking for partners in order to regain control of the company his father started, and take the company private, much like Dell did in 2013, which poses a few advantages over having a public offering, among which is less accountability to shareholders.
Per CNBC, a more recent development corroborates this, stating that Jacobs has been in contact with some potential investors, which include chip designer ARM, whose parent company is Japan's SoftBank Group Corp. Jacobs is said to be working with two banks and lawyers, and hopes for fewer than ten owners to be involved upon the completion of the deal.
Jacobs also plans for the company to continue to be based from the U.S., which would serve to offset national security concerns from the U.S. Government that caused it to block the Singapore-based Broadcom acquisition bids from earlier. A person familiar with the matter said that his plans for the company can only come to fruition if the company goes private, along with significant backing from investors.
With all this is going on, Jacobs also plans to patch the company's shaky dealings with Apple through his positive relationship with Tim Cook - the two companies have been at loggerheads over patent licensing for some time now.
Image: Bloomberg
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