ABB confirmed on 5 November that China’s foreign-investment security review office “has prohibited the acquisition of the ABB Robotics business in China”, in a group press release published at 06:25 UTC, 3 hours 23 minutes after the Financial Times first reported the decision, by our arithmetic. The confirmation covers the China part of SoftBank Group’s $5.375 billion deal for ABB’s robotics division.
SoftBank Group closed down 6.77% in Tokyo, about $10.4 billion of market value by our arithmetic. Three-quarters of that fall, 216 of the 289 yen, came in the morning session, before the FT report landed during the Tokyo lunch break.
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The key insight: ABB’s own release confirms that China’s foreign-investment security review office prohibited the acquisition of the ABB Robotics business in China. SoftBank closed down 6.77%, about $10.4 billion of market value by our arithmetic, but 216 of the day’s 289-yen fall came before the FT report.
This follows our first report, China Said to Block SoftBank’s $5.4B Buy of ABB Robotics, which relayed the FT and Bloomberg and now carries ABB’s release in an update box. ABB’s release says: “ABB confirms that it has been informed by SoftBank that the Office of the Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review in China has prohibited the acquisition of the ABB Robotics business in China.”
It also says “the process to obtain the regulatory approvals is managed by SoftBank” and that “ABB and SoftBank are in close dialogue and are working constructively on the transaction.” The release, as we read it, gives no break fee, termination, new timetable or financial impact.
Asked by the AWP news agency, ABB “declined to comment further at this time on the possible implications for the sale as a whole and the next steps”, according to a Keystone-SDA report.
At 07:24 UTC, SoftBank’s English and Japanese press-release lists showed no release after 30 October, and the 5 November disclosure lists on TDnet, the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s filing system, showed no SoftBank Group filing.
SoftBank Group (TSE 9984) on 5 November 2026, Tokyo time. Open, low, close and previous close are Tokyo Stock Exchange prices from Kabutan; the line uses Yahoo Finance five-minute closes. The FT report time is from Google News and ABB’s release time from its release page. The 75% share is our arithmetic.Animated: SoftBank Group’s share price in five-minute closes on 5 November 2026, Tokyo time, from Yahoo Finance data, with the close from Tokyo Stock Exchange prices via Kabutan. The 75% share before the FT report is our arithmetic.
How SoftBank Traded
SoftBank Group (TSE 9984) closed at 3,980 yen on 5 November, down 289 yen, or 6.77%, from 4,269 yen on 4 November, according to Tokyo Stock Exchange prices on Kabutan. It opened at 4,215 yen and hit its low of the day, 3,930 yen, at 9:02 a.m. Tokyo time; 59.5 million shares changed hands.
The FT report came at 03:02 UTC, which is 12:02 in Tokyo, inside the exchange’s 11:30 to 12:30 lunch break. SoftBank ended the morning session at 4,053 yen, according to Yahoo Finance’s five-minute data, down 5.1% on the day by our arithmetic.
In the afternoon session it fell a further 73 yen, to the 3,980 close. By our arithmetic, 216 of the day’s 289-yen fall, about 75%, came before the FT report. ABB’s release went out at 15:25 Tokyo time, five minutes before the 15:30 close.
The fall came on a day when chip and AI shares fell across Asia, as we reported in Samsung, SK Hynix Lose $144B as KOSPI Closes Down 5.3%. The Nikkei 225 closed down 1,110.73 points, or 1.79%, at 61,077.90, and Kabutan’s closing market report said AI and semiconductor shares were sold.
The Value Lost
SoftBank’s investor relations page gives 5,711,848,120 shares issued, including 12,924,419 shares of treasury stock, as of 31 March 2026. On the 5,698,923,701 shares outstanding, the 289-yen fall is about 1.65 trillion yen of market value, by our arithmetic.
At 158.21 yen to the dollar, MUFG Bank’s mid rate for 5 November, that is about $10.4 billion, or about 1.9 times the deal’s $5.375 billion enterprisevalue. About $7.8 billion of it came before the FT report and about $2.6 billion after, by the same arithmetic.
At 3,980 yen, SoftBank was 56% below its 2026 high of 9,074 yen on 2 June, according to Kabutan’s price history. We do not attribute the day’s fall, or any part of it, to the ABB decision.
The Deal ABB Signed
When ABB announced the sale on 8 October 2025, it said the transaction was “subject to regulatory approvals and further customary closing conditions and is expected to close in mid-to-late 2026”. By our arithmetic, 5 November 2026 is 393 days after that announcement.
ABB said that on closing it expected a non-operational pre-tax book gain of about $2.4 billion and cash proceeds, net of transaction costs, of about $5.3 billion. It put separation costs at about $200 million and transaction-related cash tax outflows at $400 million to $500 million.
ABB said the Robotics division had about 7,000 staff and 2024 revenues of $2.3 billion, about 7% of group revenues, with an Operational EBITA margin of 12.1%. It said it would report the division as discontinued operations from the fourth quarter of 2025.
Keystone-SDA reported that China is the largest market for ABB’s robotics division, that more than 90% of robots for Chinese customers are made locally, and that ABB has run a $150 million robot factory in Shanghai since 2022. It also reported that the European Commission had already approved the acquisition.
Update, 5 Nov, 08:16Z: ABB in Zurich. ABB shares opened at 68.98 Swiss francs on the SIX Swiss Exchange, down 2.1% from the 4 November close of 70.46 francs, and traded at 69.30 francs at 09:01 Zurich time, down 1.6%, according to Yahoo Finance’s five-minute data; the percentages are our arithmetic. The low so far was 68.94 francs at 09:00. We do not attribute the move to the decision.
The Business Lever
The business lever is SoftBank’s physical AI strategy. When the deal was signed, Masayoshi Son said: “SoftBank’s next frontier is Physical AI.” For ABB, the lever is the roughly $5.3 billion of net proceeds it said it expected; Keystone-SDA reports that ABB has since announced the purchase of Rotork for $5.5 billion.
As we read the release, ABB confirms only the China part of the decision and leaves the rest of the deal open: it says the two companies are working constructively on the transaction and gives no new timetable.
As we read the timing, the FT report landed in Tokyo’s lunch break and ABB’s release five minutes before the close, so most of SoftBank’s fall came before either.
As we read ABB’s October 2025 terms, the deal was expected to bring ABB about $5.3 billion of net cash and a book gain of about $2.4 billion on closing.
ABB, 5 November 2026
“ABB and SoftBank are in close dialogue and are working constructively on the transaction.”
Three Implications
FOR SOFTBANK Masayoshi Son called physical AI SoftBank’s next frontier when the deal was signed; China is the robotics division’s largest market, according to Keystone-SDA.
FOR ABB ABB said in October 2025 it expected about $5.3 billion of net cash proceeds on closing; Keystone-SDA reports it has since announced the purchase of Rotork for $5.5 billion.
FOR OTHER CROSS-BORDER ROBOTICS DEALS The decision came from China’s Office of the Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review, which ABB names in its release; Bloomberg, relaying the FT, reported that the National Development and Reform Commission opposed the deal.
The analysis says: “It’s a fundamental constraint on the speed of AI transformation, and it’s creating geopolitical leverage that operates independently of who has the best models.”
As we read it, a security review over a robotics business whose largest market is China is one form of that leverage over physical AI. The analysis is about processing capacity for physical inputs; it does not discuss ABB, SoftBank or this decision.
What Is Not Established
ABB’s release does not say what “working constructively” involves, whether the rest of the deal can close without the China business, or whether SoftBank will seek approval again. The reasons for the decision come from the FT’s reporting as relayed by Keystone-SDA and Bloomberg; we have not read the FT article in full.
We cannot say how much of SoftBank’s fall reflects the decision: most of it came before the report, on a day of broad selling in Asian chip shares. The intraday prices are third-party data from Yahoo Finance and Kabutan, not exchange notices.
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ABB has confirmed that China’s foreign-investment security review office prohibited SoftBank’s acquisition of the ABB Robotics business in China, and says the two companies are working on the transaction. SoftBank closed down 6.77%, about $10.4 billion by our arithmetic, with three-quarters of the fall before the FT report.
A note on sourcing. ABB’s confirmation and deal terms are from its own releases of 5 November 2026 and 8 October 2025. SoftBank’s open, low, close and previous close are Tokyo Stock Exchange prices read on Kabutan after the 15:30 Tokyo close; the morning-session close is from Yahoo Finance’s five-minute data. The share count is from SoftBank’s investor relations page (as of 31 March 2026) and the dollar rate is MUFG Bank’s 5 November mid rate.
The value figures and the split before and after the FT report are our arithmetic. The reasons for the decision are the FT’s reporting as relayed by Keystone-SDA and Bloomberg. We did not contact the companies.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
