Business

Paul Turner, Broadcom

On November 2 2017, standing next to a beaming President Donald Trump at the White House, Hock Tan announced he would be moving his Broadcom semiconductor business from Singapore back to the US. Flanked by Trump, Tan recounted his journey as an “18-year-old skinny kid” from Malaysia who went on to win a scholarship to MIT in 1971. There was another reason for the White House visit; Tan wanted to buy chipmaker Qualcomm for $105bn. Tan told the New York Times that the timing of the Qualcomm bid and his White House visit was coincidental, and that he was focused on growing his business in the long term. Four months later, Trump blocked the deal on national security grounds.

Later that year, Broadcom bought Symantec for $10.7bn and then acquired CA Technologies for $18.9bn. But Tan wasn’t done, and wanted a company that would build out its enterprise infrastructure software offering, telling analysts in March 2022 that Broadcom had the capacity for a “good size” acquisition. That acquisition was VMware, which had been spun out from Dell the year before and Tan phoned Michael Dell to make his case. He offered $61bn in cash and stock, a 50% premium on where VMware stock was trading at the time, and said VMware had 40 days to try to find a better deal. The money was on the table, and VMware took the plunge. The deal closed in November 2023.