China blocks SoftBank’s $5.4 billion takeover of ABB’s robotics division (updated)

Abb

05/11/2026 03:51

China's state planner concerned about overseas transfer of robotics data, source says
Deal prohibition restrains SoftBank's ambitions in the robotics industry
China ordered Meta to unwind its $2-billion-plus acquisition of Manus earlier this year
SoftBank-backed OPay pulled New York IPO due to foreign regulatory inquiry last week
Adds comments from two people familiar with the deal in paragraphs 8-9 and 12
By Anton Bridge and Kane Wu
Nov 5 (Reuters) - China's state planner has told Japanese investor SoftBank 9984.T it will not allow its $5.4 billion acquisition of the robotics business of Swiss engineering group ABB ABBN.S to go ahead, ABB said on Thursday.
It is the second major deal blocked by China this year after Meta META.O was ordered in April to unwind its more than $2 billion acquisition of artificial intelligence startup Manus, as Beijing tightens scrutiny of foreign investment involving frontier technologies.
It also deals a setback to SoftBank's ambitions in robotics, which Chief Executive Masayoshi Son has identified as a core part of the Japanese group's AI investment strategy.
The Financial Times first reported the prohibition on Thursday. SoftBank had expected the deal to go through until it was told last week that China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) had prohibited the acquisition, the report said.
The NDRC reviews foreign investments that might have national security implications. 
SoftBank declined to comment. The NDRC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
ABB shares were down 2.7% by 1458 GMT.
Chinese authorities are concerned about the potential transfer of sensitive data to the US and SoftBank's ties with Western companies including OpenAI, in which the Japanese firm is a major investor, a person familiar with the transaction said.
China is also uncomfortable with a Japanese company gaining control of the technology amid strained China-Japan relations, a second person familiar with the matter said. Both people declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Tensions between China and Japan have risen since comments by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Taiwan in November last year, prompting China to severely limit exports of critical minerals to Japan.
ABB said it and SoftBank are in close dialogue and working on the transaction.
The first person said the transaction remained up in the air, although ABB and SoftBank were optimistic they could find a solution. SoftBank was also in talks with Chinese authorities, the person said.
China is ABB's biggest robotics market, accounting for about 30% of its robotics business. ABB operates about 30 local companies in China with around 15,000 employees located in nearly 130 cities, as well as online and offline channels in nearly 700 cities.
According to its website, ABB Engineering (Shanghai) houses the company's global robotics headquarters and is an important research-and-development center and production base for ABB Group.
SoftBank shares were down about 5% before the FT published the report and they ended the day down 6.8%.
The blocked ABB deal comes less than a week after SoftBank-backed digital-payments company OPay withdrew a US initial public offering, citing a ​regulatory inquiry by a foreign jurisdiction it did not identify.
OPay would have raised $304 million from the IPO after pricing 16 million American depositary shares at $19 each.

 (Reporting by Sumedha Mukherjee in Bengaluru, Anton Bridge in Tokyo, Kane Wu in Hong Kong and John Revill in Zurich; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Thomas Derpinghaus, Miyoung Kim)
 ((Sumedha.Mukherjee2@thomsonreuters.com))