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That is a very interesting perspective on the Siemens deal. Funnily enough, when I was going through the deal with an AI assistant just after it was announced, there was a suggestion of it being a "quasi-acquisition" by Siemens.

The CFO actually said the remainder of the revenue would be recognised over the next 12-18 months so a more reasonable estimate of around 2/3 of that recognised in 2025 gets us to around $300 million, basically flat YoY and way off the original $450 million.

They published the trading update on Tuesday 16th April last year so we could hear something as early as tomorrow

Yeah, Qualcomm have all the leverage in the negotiations now. If they pull out the share price craters and the company may not be able to survive in the current economic environment which perhaps makes the acqusition more likely. We're probably going to be forced to accept an offer around 200p or risk losing everything at this rate.

How can you tell that Qualcomm are buying shares?

Yeah, I wasn't expecting Qualcomm to be looking at Alphawave but I guess it makes sense given their acquisition of Nuvia hasn't played out as well as they had hoped. They decided to pivot Nuvia from designing chips for the datacentre towards designing them for laptops and the timing couldn't have been worse since the demand for AI chips has exploded while demand for their Snapdragon X chips is pretty low. Acquiring Alphawave would give them a route back into the datacentre.

The article does mention "other potential acquirers" though, wonder who they might be.

Https://www.reuters.com/technology/arm-recently-sought-acquire-alphawave-ai-chip-tech-sources-say-2025-04-01/

Apparently after initial discussions ARM decided not to pursue making a deal.

Rumours that ARM tried to acquire them

There's nothing in the article we didn't already know besides a couple of comments from the CEO. He noted the irony of JPM facilitating the company's IPO and now having the biggest short position against it. He also comments that things would have been less messy if they raised the money from private markets and IPOed after completing the acquistions and business transition they have undergone these past few years. He's right in hindsight but the current depressed share price presents a huge opportunity for those of us who see the potential of Alphawave. This is a critical year, the aforementioned business transition should now be complete and the company needs to show good execution. Let's wait and see how FY24 results and 2025 guidance look in about 1 month's time.

Https://newsroom.sw.siemens.com/en-US/siemens-alphawave/

This is a big strategic win for Alphawave. The partnership with Siemens makes perfect sense given that the other two big players in the EDA space (Cadence and Synopsys) are also competing with Alphawave in IP.

I'm surprised that given all of the hype around quantum computing lately, there hasn't been any mention of this co. as are one of the few suppliers of the complex cryogenic systems needed. After doing a bit of digging, it seems that Bluefors is the leader in this area but they are not publicly listed. As far as I can tell, this is the only kind of exposure to this very specific area you can buy so thought it might have generated a little interest. Ah well, what do I know...

Fundamentally the thing of value is the IP. Cadence and Synopsys could simply acquire the networking IP they are interested in and sell off the other parts while also eliminating a competitor. In the case of ARM it's been rumoured that they are looking to get into the custom silicon business themselves (whether or not competing with their customers is a good idea is another question).

At this kind of valuation I wonder if the likes of ARM, Cadence or Synopsys are thinking about a possible takeover attempt.

Possibly as a way to improve sentiment and increase the stock price leading up to the announcement so they wouldn't need to dilute as much to raise the $150 million

I believe management could be giving us a hint about the client here: "supplier of power and propulsion systems used in the air, at sea, and on land" is the exact language Rolls Royce uses to describe their operations...