Qualcomm Rejects Board Nominees from Broadcom, Silver Lake

Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) on Friday said its board won't nominate any of the 11 candidates proposed by Broadcom Ltd.(AVGO) and Silver Lake Partners, as it seeks to retain control of the company following Broadcom's $105 billion hostile takeover bid.

Qualcomm said the nominees "are inherently conflicted and would not bring incremental skills or expertise." The company said its board is instead nominating its current 11 directors.

"Broadcom and Silver Lake are asking Qualcomm stockholders to turn over control of their company now to the hand-picked Broadcom-Silver Lake nominees based on a proposal that dramatically undervalues Qualcomm and is not actionable due to its significant regulatory uncertainty, which may not be resolved for 18 months, if ever, and lack of committed financing," Qualcomm said in a news release.

The board rebuff comes a little more than a month after Qualcomm rejected the takeover proposal from Broadcom.

Silver Lake is the private-equity firm backing the proposed takeover. With $39 billion in assets, Silver Lake is one of the biggest players in technology investing. It pledged $5 billion in convertible debt to back Broadcom's bid for Qualcomm. Qualcomm's annual meeting is March 6.

Shares of Qualcomm rose 0.4% premarket Friday.

-Miriam Gottfried and Dawn Lim contributed to this article.

Write to Allison Prang at allison.prang@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 22, 2017 08:24 ET (13:24 GMT)