SoftBank deal flags China's M&A hair trigger

Abb

05/11/2026 08:14

The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.
By Hudson Lockett and Robyn Mak
HONG KONG, Nov 5 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Do you feel lucky, punk? For foreign firms with takeover deals running though China, the answer is, increasingly and emphatically, no. The latest casualty of Beijing’s pique is SoftBank Group's 9984.T $5.4 billion bid for ABB's ABBN.S industrial robotics firm. The method of execution suggests there’s plenty of high-calibre rounds left to fire at any AI or tech-related deals.
The Swiss firm on Thursday said the 2025 deal had been struck down by China’s Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review. That’s a high-level entity established in 2021 under the powerful National Development and Reform Commission and run jointly with China’s commerce ministry — one which ostensibly gets involved in deals that could affect national security. 
One of the NDRC’s concerns, as per a Financial Times report citing unnamed sources, was the possibility Chinese data could be transferred overseas and used to train AI models, including those of SoftBank-backed OpenAI. China generated 23% of the ABB's robotics revenue in the nine months ended September 2025, the last time the company reported the break down. 
For SoftBank, this may be a blessing in disguise, as Masayoshi Son's acquisitive outfit was paying a punchy valuation multiple. ABB could try and ring-fence its robotics business in China from the unit's US and Germany operations, and do the same to its 7,000 engineers and specialists. But reverting to its original plan of a spinoff won't unlock much value if the market thinks China will block any sale, and not just one to SoftBank. 
Ultimately China is seeking to preserve the tech edge upon which top leaders have pinned growth hopes for an economy otherwise plagued by weak domestic demand. In April, the NDRC ordered Meta Platforms META.O to unwind a $2 billion-plus acquisition of Singapore-based Manus on grounds that the target's AI tech was developed in China. And new rules governing outbound investments and various export controls effectively put all Chinese-origin tech, data and talent under sustained additional scrutiny. That all bodes ill for Marvell's mega $112 billion acquisition of data-center laser maker Lumentum LITE.O, which in 2023 bought a Hong Kong-based R&D centre. 
In short, buyers will need to keep their heads on a swivel when approaching any deal that touches compelling Chinese assets. Regulators and security officials have a growing list of excuses to pull the trigger.
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CONTEXT NEWS
China has blocked SoftBank Group’s $5.4 billion takeover of ABB’s industrial robotics division, according to a statement released by ABB on November 5. 
The Swiss firm said it had been informed by Japan's SoftBank that China's Office of the Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review has prohibited the acquisition of the ABB Robotics business in the country.
ABB added that both companies "are working constructively on the transaction". The original deal was announced in October 2025.

(Editing by Una Galani; Production by Aditya Srivastav and Streisand Neto)
((For previous columns by the authors, Reuters customers can click on LOCKETT/ hudson.lockett@thomsonreuters.com and MAK/  robyn.mak@thomsonreuters.com))