ARM Holdings is giving up their "holding" to Sprint/SoftBank

ARM Holdings, the maker of chips and chip making technology has week a favorite here at IPZine. They are basically an IP company holding lots of patents on lots of stuff. They specialize in energy-efficient, reduced instruction set (RISC) chip technology; build it and then license it out to chip makers.
They have really taken off into the work of the Internet of Things.
Today SoftBank (parent of Sprint) has offered to by ARMH in an all cash bid. The stock is up 50% today. Even at this elevated price, the price-to-earnings ratio is 70!. Compare that to Intel (INTC) with a paltry PE of 15. Profit margin of 35% vs 20% for INTC.
ARM has remained independent and resisted the various take-over pressures. Until now. This changes somewhat the ARM dynamic of licensing tech to multiple players and making lots of money from licensing revenues (nearly pure profit). ARM has focused on tools and R&D and left the heavy work of manufacturing, distribution, etc. to their clients.
This is probably a good time to start getting out of the stock; SoftBand (Sprint) is not nearly the same type of investment. Sprint is more of a utility play, not R&D.
The drop in British Pound has made ARMH a far better deal to acquire. (ARMH is UK based.)
On a separate note, SoftBank’s interests in buying up chip makers might become more complicated with ARM Holdings, in the company’s holdings.
In the end, the independence of ARM Holdings didn’t hold.