Alphawave IP Group – the final deadline for Qualcomm making a bid is now just a day away – just what will happen, shares up 22% in two months but is there more upside?

04.06.2025

At the start of April, I featured the shares of Alphawave IP Group (LON:AWE) at 117p, following their swift rise from 91.50p on the last day of March.

The reason for that rise was the approach made by the $163bn capitalised NASDAQ-quoted semiconductor group, Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM).

To Bid Or Not To Bid

On Tuesday 1st April, Qualcomm announced that it was considering making an offer to acquire the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Alphawave.

The initial deadline was set to declare its intentions to bid or not was by 5pm on Tuesday 29th April.

That deadline was first extended to 5pm on Monday 12th May, then extended to Tuesday 27th May and then further extended to Monday 2nd June.

Then on Monday of this week Alphawave announced that the two group’s remained engaged in discussions in respect of a possible offer and that, accordingly the Board of Alphawave and the Panel on Takeovers and Mergers had consented to an extension of the PUSU (put up or shut up) Deadline, to 5pm tomorrow night, Thursday 5th June.

So, will Qualcomm win through? In the intervening period from approach to now, Alphawave shares have been up to 151.25p, and are now trading at around the 143p level.

The Business

Set up in Toronto, Canada in 2017, by an expert technical team with a proven track record in licensing semiconductor IP, the mission of the Alphawave IP Group is to focus on the hardest-to-solve connectivity challenges.

It develops and sells connectivity solutions in North America, China, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the UK.

It is a vertically integrated semiconductor company, with some 900 employees, offering silicon IP solutions, chiplets, custom silicon, and connectivity products.

It serves the data centre, artificial intelligence, 5G wireless infrastructure, data networking, autonomous vehicles, data storage, and solid-state storage markets.

Alphawave supplies cutting edge connectivity solutions for the world’s most demanding applications in digital infrastructure through the licensing of its IP, the supply of custom silicon, and, from last year, sales of its optical connectivity products.

Its technology services a critical need: enabling data to travel faster, more reliably and with higher performance at lower power.

What is Qualcomm?

In a note accompanying its first approach to Alphawave the San Diego-based potential bidder, which employs nearly 50,000 people, described its business as follows:

“Qualcomm relentlessly innovates to deliver intelligent computing everywhere, helping the world tackle some of its most important challenges.

Building on our 40 years of technology leadership in creating era-defining breakthroughs, we deliver a broad portfolio of solutions built with our leading-edge AI, high-performance, low-power computing, and unrivalled connectivity.

Our Snapdragon® platforms power extraordinary consumer experiences, and our Qualcomm Dragonwing™ products empower businesses and industries to scale to new heights.

Together with our ecosystem partners, we enable next-generation digital transformation to enrich lives, improve businesses, and advance societies. At Qualcomm, we are engineering human progress.

Qualcomm Incorporated includes our licensing business, QTL, and the vast majority of our patent portfolio.

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, operates, along with its subsidiaries, substantially all of our engineering and research and development functions and substantially all of our products and services businesses, including our QCT semiconductor business.

Snapdragon and Qualcomm branded products are products of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.

Qualcomm patents are licensed by Qualcomm Incorporated.”

The QTL segment grants licenses or provides rights to use portions of its intellectual property portfolio, which include various patent rights useful in the manufacture and sale of wireless products comprising products implementing CDMA2000, WCDMA, LTE and/or OFDMA-based 5G products.

The QSI segment invests in early-stage companies in various industries, including 5G, artificial intelligence, automotive, consumer, enterprise, cloud, IoT, and extended reality, and investments, including non-marketable equity securities and, to a lesser extent, marketable equity securities, and convertible debt instruments.

It also provides development, and other services and sells related products to the United States government agencies and their contractors.

In My View

The progression of the ongoing discussions, with the subsequent PUSU extensions, leads me to reckon that Qualcomm is very serious about taking out Alphawave -obviously, it is just about the price!

As I stated in my first article, if Qualcomm makes a bid or not, there may well be others with a very strong interest in taking out Alphawave.

Until we know better, its shares at 143p are a Strong H

old, despite the temptation of taking a quick 22% profit on the two-month holding.