With news that Singapore-based Broadcom Ltd. could sell its campus at Irvine’s Great Park Neighborhoods for $443 million back to FivePoint Communities Inc., here’s a look at how the chip giant has shaken up the local tech and real estate landscape.
Avago Technologies Inc. in February 2016 acquired Broadcom Corp., then based in Irvine, for $35.7 billion. Avago changed its own name to Broadcom Ltd. and moved its U.S. headquarters to San Jose.
The company last year sold its wireless infrastructure backhaul business for $80 million to Carlsbad-based MaxLinear Inc. The business unit employed about 120 at the time and posted sales of nearly $30 million.
In April 2016, Broadcom sold its Internet of Things business for $550 million to Cypress Semiconductor Corp. in San Jose. The cash deal included Broadcom Corp.’s Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee IoT product lines and intellectual property, plus its WICED Smart chipsets, which allow devices to talk to each other.
The IoT business and WICED brand were based at Broadcom Corp’s University Research Park campus next to the University of California-Irvine and employed about 430 worldwide.
Another $36 million was generated last year through the sale of Broadcom Corp. businesses classified as “discontinued operations.”
Those sales, along with other Broadcom businesses it deemed nonessential, generated cash proceeds of about $830 million last year, according to regulatory filings.
Broadcom Ltd. in 2016 recorded charge-offs of roughly $590 million related to Broadcom Corp. R&D, property, plants and equipment.
Avago about two years ago also acquired Costa Mesa-based networking gear maker Emulex Corp. for $587 million. Its headquarters at 3333 S. Susan St.—which included about 180,000 square feet spread over three buildings and 3.2 acres of adjacent land—fetched nearly $50 million in a sale to Foster City-based investor and developer SteelWave. Part of the property, which is being redeveloped as creative-office space The Hive, is now home to the Los Angeles Chargers.
Avago in October 2015 sold Emulex’ network visibility product line at a loss of $28 million.
Whether Broadcom will make a profit on its expected sale of the 73-acre campus to FivePoint of Aliso Viejo remains to be seen. Broadcom acquired the land in 2015 for about $156 million, including taxes and fees. Its 2015 financial statements said it would spend about $650 million through the end of 2018 to build the 1.1 million-square-foot, first phase of the campus. Thus far, four offices are now being built. Broadcom Ltd. has shed more than 770 local workers, about a third of its Irvine workforce, since the Broadcom Corp. acquisition.
ClariPhy’s Value
In another Broadcom tie-in, a recent Deutsche Bank investor note forecasted that ClariPhy Communications Inc. in Irvine will add more than $45 million in sales to the top line of Inphi Corp.
The Santa Clara-based chipmaker acquired ClariPhy in November for $275 million, plus debt.
Inphi makes semiconductors for communications, data centers and computing.
ClariPhy makes chips that allow for the transfer of data at speeds of up to 100 gigabits per second, an emerging market driven by demand for video and other data on mobile devices.
The company was led by Nariman Yousefi, who helped establish Broadcom’s networking group prior to joining ClariPhy. Yousefi now serves in a senior vice president role at Inphi, which posted sales of $266.2 million last year.
