Nvidia is taking over the AI chip world by connecting with VMware software after bringing ARM inhouse. Intel has a real challenge ahead. What Nvidia is doing is to unify AI chips with cloud computing, via VMware, and then drive the mobile world with ARM. 

Nvidia and VMware have partnered on a major artificial intelligence deal in which VMware will make its data center software compatible with Nvidia’s computer chips tailored for deep learning. VMware announced the partnership on Tuesday amid its annual VMworld conference, held online this year owing to the coronavirus pandemic. As part of the partnership, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger told Fortune that Nvidia will ensure that the developer software that accompanies its A.I. chips will work with VMware Tanzu technology, which incorporates the trendy container technology that coders use to build apps that work with multiple cloud computing services and in-house data centers.

The implication of this is massive. If datacenters can easily use Nvidia chips because VMware has made it easier for them to use, other server chip makers may be in trouble. This Nvidia-VMware partnership is a major closing of the flanks as it ensures Nvidia secures its castle of high-end AI chip business for gaming and modern computing, by creating a moat via VMware. Nvidia is arguably the world’s best AI chip maker while VMware provides cloud computing and virtualization software and services at scale.  Bring them together, a new dimensions of competitiveness is introduced in the microprocessor world.

Recently, Nvidia struck a deal to acquire ARM, a global leader in making chips for mobile devices. I see Nvidia, well ahead of Intel across many metrics to be unifying the modern chip business. The age of Intel has gone, now, we are in the Nvidia era.

SoftBank Group Corp is getting close to a deal which will see it sell Arm Holdings to Nvidia Corp. for over $40 billion. The Japanese conglomerate has been in talks with Nvidia for weeks now as it seeks to sell off some of its subsidiaries to offset its financial troubles.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the cash-and-stock deal is expected to close on more than $40 billion. The deal will mean a big win for SoftBank who bought ARM for $32 billion four years ago, and has been struggling with the British company.

SoftBank and Nvidia started talking in July, as Nvidia is seeking to consolidate its play in the semiconductor industry. ARM is an English tech company with a great reputation in chip making. It makes chips for modern devices including smartphones, an area where Nvidia is yet to find foothold.

Identify the giant on this table: the market cap of selected stock exchanges in Africa. Unlike GDP, this one is practically REAL as it is sealed with money. From these numbers, retirement, mutual funds, pension investments, etc draw their lives.

NB: This $74 billion from Quartz may not be accurate depending on its definition of “bourses” in Nigeria. The correct number is around $42 using the official exchange rate of N380 to divide the total market value of N16 trillion in the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

HealthPlus responds  via a public notice, and this is the main paragraph:

“At the time of the equity investment in 2018, Mrs. Bukky George transferred 95% ownership of HealthPlus to a new entity called HealthPlus Africa Holdings Limited (incorporated in Mauritius), whilst retaining 5% shares in her own name. HealthPlus Africa Holdings Limited is owned by Mrs Bukky George (46.2%) and Idi Holdings (53.8%). Idi Holdings is Alta Semper’s investment vehicle. In essence, Mrs. Bukky George owns (directly and indirectly) 48.9% of HealthPlus and is the only Nigerian registered Pharmacist shareholder and director in the Company.”

Click here for more on this.

This makes this case challenging because if this investor pays up, technically, the private equity firm is the majority owner of HealthPlus. But yet, despite this public notice, no one knows the voting structure. Mark Zuckerberg controls less than 30% of Facebook but holds about 60% of its voting rights. Largely, even in its public notice, HealthPlus is not providing clarity.

Very strange things here…why do you have to indirectly own your company? At the end, the math worked against you!!!

PUBLIC NOTICE

Re: Health Plus Limited

Over the last few days, there have been in the news and social media, stories of the removal of Mrs. Bukky George as CEO of Health Plus Limited (‘HealthPlus’), the appointment of one Mr. Chidi Okoro as Chief Transformation Officer, and the attempted hostile takeover of the Company by agents of Alta Semper Capital (a foreign private equity firm which invested in the Company in 2018). It has therefore become necessary for the Company to issue a formal statement on the on-going dispute and set the record straight. Apart from matters of illegality and violations of extant Nigerian legislation that trail and taint the transaction (which are being articulated in Court), the following is a summary of the actual facts.

Background

HealthPlus was founded in 1999 by Mrs. Bukky George, and is Nigeria’s first integrative pharmacy and the largest and fastest growing pharmacy chain in West Africa. As of March 2018, it operated 76 retail pharmacy and beauty stores, with presence in 11 States and the FCT, employing 800 Nigerians and was already the largest private employer of pharmacists in Nigeria.

In 2018, HealthPlus partnered with Alta Semper Capital LLC UK to inject fresh capital to grow the business. Alta Semper pledged Africa-focused, healthcare-focused, flexible capital to take advantage of the opportunities in the marketplace in order to scale the business. The investment into HealthPlus was to enable the Company to capture the pent-up demand for high-quality yet affordable medicines, healthcare products and beauty supplies, to rapidly expand the Company’s footprint across Nigeria, establish a distribution centre, develop B2B channels and e-commerce. Alta Semper Capital undertook to commit USD18 million into HealthPlus whilst retaining Mrs. Bukky George as CEO.

Litigation

At the time of the equity investment in 2018, Mrs. Bukky George transferred 95% ownership of HealthPlus to a new entity called HealthPlus Africa Holdings Limited (incorporated in Mauritius), whilst retaining 5% shares in her own name. HealthPlus Africa Holdings Limited is owned by Mrs Bukky George (46.2%) and Idi Holdings (53.8%). Idi Holdings is Alta Semper’s investment vehicle. In essence, Mrs. Bukky George owns (directly and indirectly) 48.9% of HealthPlus and is the only Nigerian registered Pharmacist shareholder and director in the Company.

Alta Semper Capital provided part of the first tranche of USD10 million with which the Company achieved several of the initiatives in its business plan. However, it soon appeared that they (Alta Semper) were unable to come up with the balance of the equity investment.

In May 2020, after 15 months of delayed funding, breached agreements, unmet expectations, dwindling inventory, reputational damage to the Company and its founder, and an attempt to ‘promote’ Mrs. Bukky George to the position of Chairman; Mrs. Bukky George instituted legal action at the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court [in Suit No. FHC/L/CS/609/2020] seeking reliefs aimed at stopping Alta Semper Capital and its nominees from running and managing the Company in an oppressive and prejudicial manner and in disregard of her interests as a shareholder. There is pending in that case a Motion on Notice for Interlocutory Injunction dated 27th May, 2020 seeking to restrain the Respondents from removing her as CEO.

Upon being served with the Court process, the Alta Semper Capital nominees who are Respondents to the suit did not file any defence, but appealed that the parties mediate their dispute. They, however, chose to truncate the mediation process after three (3) meetings over a period of three (3) months. Their intransigence frustrated Mrs. Bukky George’s other nominee director and the Chairman into resigning from the Board. The Board (which by the transaction documents MUST comprise of five (5) members) now has just three (3) directors and has not met for the last six-months. The next time that Mrs. Bukky George heard from the Alta Semper Capital nominees was when they wrote to her, on 25th September 2020, wrongfully and unlawfully stating that they had terminated her appointment as CEO – when in fact they had no authority or power to do so.

The Takeover Attempt

On Wednesday 23rd September, 2020, Mr. Zachary Fond and other agents of Alta Semper Capital flew into Nigeria and were allowed entry on Visa on Arrival (“VoA”) basis. In what appears to be a clear violation of the conditions of their respective VoA, they have been unlawfully parading themselves as Executive Directors of HealthPlus. They have (albeit without any authority) sought to involve themselves in the day-to-day management of HealthPlus by inviting staff to meetings, purporting to issue directives, and issuing press statements, letters and mails on forged Company stationery to suppliers, bankers, security operators and regulators.

On Friday 25th September 2020, Ms. Afsane Jetha and Mr. Zachary Fond in complete disregard of the pending Motion on Notice co-signed a letter on forged Company stationery purporting to terminate Mrs. Bukky George as CEO of the Company. The settled position of the law in Nigeria is that any attempt to remove Mrs. Bukky George as CEO whilst the application for interlocutory injunction is still pending amounts to flagrant disregard of, and an affront on the authority of the Court.

The Legal Position

Mrs. Bukky George remains the Founder & CEO of the Company and continues to run the Company with the support of staff, suppliers, customers, landlords, banks and service providers – who have related with her over 20 years, who believe in her and her vision, and have helped her build the Company to the enviable brand it has become. The purported termination of her appointment as CEO cannot stand in law.

This Notice serves as a caveat to the general public, the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria, Pharmacy Associations, our staff, loyal customers, vendors, landlords, bankers and all stakeholders to disregard all communication from Alta Semper Capital and or its nominees and agents. They do not have any authority to issue directives on behalf of or bind Health Plus Limited. The dispute is sub-judice.

Dated the 29th of September, 2020