President Donald Trump said semiconductor company Broadcom Ltd. is returning its headquarters to the U.S. from Singapore.
Broadcom CEO Hock Tan joined Trump on Nov. 2 in the Oval Office for the announcement. Tan said the move to domicile the company in the U.S. would bring $20 billion in revenue into the country.
The two men didn’t specify the site of the new main location. Broadcom’s website lists San Jose, Calif., as an existing corporate co-headquarters and has done so since the present company was created in 2016 in one of the semiconductor industry’s largest acquisitions when Avago Technologies Ltd. acquired then-Broadcom Corp.
Tan’s visit to the White House comes as his company struggles to get regulatory approval for its $5.9 billion purchase of Brocade Communications Systems Inc. That deal, announced last November, has been delayed at least three times by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., a panel that reviews the security risks of foreign acquisitions of American companies.
Acquisitions have been key to Tan’s strategy and he’s played a central role in consolidation of the $300 billion semiconductor industry over the last three years.
The company, which is a major supplier to Apple Inc., has built itself from a former division of Hewlett-Packard into one of the industry’s largest chipmakers via a string of purchases. Tan has said he intends to seek more deals, a strategy that could be limited by opposition from U.S. regulators.
Broadcom had annual revenue of $14.9 billion in 2016 and that total is forecast to rise to $18 billion in 2017, according to analysts’ estimates. Brocade reported sales of $2.35 billion in 2016. Broadcom had 15,700 employees as of October 2016., according to regulatory filings.
Broadcom gets 54% of its sales in China and 8.5% from the U.S., according to data compiled by Bloomberg. About 76% its long-term assets are U.S. based.
By Ian King and Shannon Pettypiece
