There’s a shakeup on Qualcomm’s board amid Broadcom’s hostile takeover attempts

▤ Summary

Things have not been so rosy for Qualcomm over the past few months, whether you are looking at an ongoing legal dispute between the chipmaker and Apple or Broadcom’s aggressive attempts to acquire the company.He’s going to remain a director, but with all that’s happened related to its dispute with Apple, its attempts to wave off Broadcom, and also its efforts to get through its acquisition of NXP as quickly as possible, it would make sense for at least some move for the chairman to show shareholders that they are aware of the issues and are looking to change things up.It’s a lot of weird semantics here, but the end result is that the board is bringing on someone independent as a kind of signal to shareholders that they are ready to make some changes in light of the issues the company has dealt with and Broadcom’s tender offer to buy it.You might recall some of this happening recently with Uber, where pending the massive investment with Softbank, the company assembled what my colleague referred to as a “Frankenboard.” As Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was on his way out and the company was trying to get fresh funding from Softbank, the board got a lot of new independent directors as it tried to establish some sense appeasement its existing shareholders.

▦ Linked Companies

Broadcom Inc.

$50M to $100M