Japan’s SoftBank has agreed to acquire Arm Holdings, the UK’s preeminent¹ technology company, for ￡23.4bn in an enormous bet by the Japanese telecoms group that the smartphone chip designer will make it a leader in one of the next big tech markets, the internet of things.

日本电信集团软银(SoftBank)已同意以234亿英镑收购英国杰出的科技企业ARM Holdings。软银展开的这场豪赌，是在押注这家智能手机芯片设计商会助其成为物联网市场的领军者。物联网是下一批重要的高科技市场之一。

The deal is expected to be announced first thing Monday morning, according to two people familiar with the negotiations². SoftBank and Arm could not immediately be reached for comment.

两名了解谈判情况的人士称，这笔交易预计会在周一早晨宣布。记者无法立即联系上软银和ARM请其置评。

The takeover of Cambridge-based Arm, which was founded a quarter of a century ago and now employs 4,000 people, would be the largest acquisition of a European technology business. SoftBank will pay ￡17 in cash for each share in Arm, a 43 per cent premium³ to its closing price last week.

总部位于英国剑桥的ARM是在大约25年前成立的，如今拥有4000名员工。这笔收购将成为对欧洲科技企业的最大一笔收购。软银将为每股ARM股票支付17英镑现金，相对于后者上周的收盘价溢价43%。

The deal comes just weeks after UK elected to exit the EU, a decision that raised questions over the attractiveness of the country’s business community. But Arm, as a global force in chip design, is better insulated from the vote for Brexit than many other UK companies with its leadership role in a key segment of the chip industry and the fact that it earns in US dollars.

几周前，英国刚刚投票决定退出欧盟(EU)，这一决定为英国商界的吸引力打上了问号。不过，作为芯片设计方面的一支全球性力量，ARM受英国退欧公投影响的程度，比其他许多英国企业要小。ARM在芯片产业的一个关键领域扮演领导者角色，而且它赚取的是美元。

The fall in sterling⁴ following the Brexit vote has left the UK currency nearly 30 per cent lower against the Japanese yen⁵ over the past year, making Arm an attractive target. Shares in Arm were essentially⁶ flat over the last 12 months.

英镑在英国退欧公投后下跌，过去一年里相对日元下跌了近30%，这让ARM成为了一个诱人的收购对象。过去12个月，ARM的股价基本保持平稳。

Arm has often been talked about as a potential acquisition target for Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, which failed to capitalise on the smartphone boom. Intel’s chip architecture, known as x86, was developed for PCs and has been ill-suited to battery-powered devices for which efficient power consumption is key.

常常有说法称，ARM是全球最大芯片制造商英特尔(Intel)的潜在收购对象。英特尔未能搭上智能手机热潮的快车。它的名为“x86”的芯片架构，是为个人电脑(PC)开发的，不太适合用电池供电的设备，对后者来说，低功耗是一个关键因素。

Arm’s business model has relied on licensing⁷ its technology to other hardware makers⁸, making it a near-ubiquitous feature of mobile devices. It reaps a small royalty⁹ amount for each device, relying on very large volumes. Last year, 15m chips based on its technology were shipped.

ARM的商业模式依赖于将其技术授权给其他硬件制造商，所以几乎所有的移动设备上都能看到它的身影。ARM对每个设备收取小额专利使用费，它的收入要靠极为庞大的装机量。