Buy, robot

9 June 2017 By Quentin Webb

The Japanese group is buying U.S. robot-maker Boston Dynamics. The undisclosed price was probably not high, since Alphabet was a keen seller. Boston’s dog-like automatons are scarier than SoftBank’s cutesy android Pepper. But both help SoftBank prepare for a robot-heavy future.

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SoftBank has agreed to buy U.S. robotics firm Boston Dynamics from Alphabet, the Japanese technology and telecommunications group said on June 8, without disclosing any financial details. As part of the deal with Google’s parent company, SoftBank will also acquire Schaft, a Japanese specialist in bipedal robotics.

The seller has owned Boston Dynamics since 2013. Last year Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Alphabet had put the company up for sale due to lack of revenue potential. A subsequent article in the Boston Globe quoted a robotics industry analyst as estimating the purchase price at $60 million.

Shares in SoftBank stood 7.5 percent higher by late morning in Tokyo trading, at 9,485 yen ($86.0). The rise followed a more than 13 percent increase overnight in the U.S.-listed stock of affiliate Alibaba, after the Chinese e-commerce giant forecast sales growth of 45 to 49 percent for the current financial year.

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