China’s foreign investment security review office has prohibited SoftBank Group from acquiring ABB Robotics in China, ABB said on Nov. 5.
ABB said SoftBank informed it that the Office of the Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review in China had prohibited the acquisition of the ABB Robotics business in China. ABB said it and SoftBank are in close dialogue and working constructively on the transaction. The company did not say how the ruling affects the sale outside China.
ABB signed an agreement in October 2025 to sell its robotics division to SoftBank for an enterprise value of $5.375 billion. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, and SoftBank manages the approval process, ABB said.
Reuters, citing the Financial Times, reported the concern was robotics data being sent overseas to train artificial intelligence models. SoftBank declined to comment, Reuters said. China is ABB’s largest robotics market, accounting for about 30 per cent of its robot-related business, according to Reuters.
It is the second large foreign deal China has stopped this year. In April, Beijing ordered Meta to reverse its $2-billion purchase of AI startup Manus.
Source: ABB, Update on divestment of ABB Robotics, Nov. 5; Reuters, via Duke FM
