China Blocks SoftBank's $5.375 Billion ABB Robotics Purchase, a Price of 2.4 Times Revenue

China's Office of the Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review has prohibited SoftBank Group's $5.375 billion acquisition of ABB's robotics division, and ABB confirmed the block to The Robot Report, which published on Nov. 5. The Financial Times reported it first, according to The Robot Report, and said Chinese authorities were worried that robotics data could be transferred overseas and used to train AI models.

ABB said the companies "are in close dialogue and are working constructively on the transaction." No completion timeline or alternative structure has been announced, and The Robot Report gave no date for the decision.

What SoftBank agreed to pay

SoftBank announced the deal on Oct. 8, 2025, in its own release, at $5.375 billion, adjusted at closing for net working capital and net debt. The release put ABB Robotics' 2024 revenue at $2,279 million, EBITDA at $313 million and operational EBITA at $277 million, all pro forma and unaudited, with about 7,000 employees.

On those figures the price is 2.36 times revenue and 17.2 times EBITDA, arithmetic that is this site's and not SoftBank's. The release quotes Masayoshi Son describing physical AI as SoftBank Group's next frontier.

1. Purchase price5375 $ million
2. Revenue2279 $ million
3. EBITDA313 $ million
4. Operational EBITA277 $ million

Source: SoftBank Group release of Oct. 8, 2025, accessed 2026-11-06

Why the China review mattered

SoftBank's release listed approvals from the EU, China and the US as conditions, with closing expected in mid to late 2026. China was always one of three gates, and it is the one that has now closed.

The Robot Report said about 90% of the machines ABB builds for Chinese customers are made at its Shanghai factory, and that ABB's China business rose 32% in the third quarter. A division that builds locally for a growing market is a harder asset to carve out than one that exports into it.

A pattern of robotics and data controls

In April, China blocked Meta's roughly $2 billion acquisition of Manus, an AI startup founded in China that had relocated to Singapore, per The Robot Report. The same article lists two moves on the other side: a Section 232 report on imported robotics and industrial machinery that Donald Trump said the Commerce Secretary had submitted, and a Federal Communications Commission ban on new foreign-made advanced robotic devices, including humanoid and quadruped robots.

This site has covered the first of those, which set no tariff, date or product list. The reasoning is the same in both capitals: a robot is a data collector with actuators, and the training data is the asset. Chinese makers face the mirror image, as in Xiaomi's factory humanoid trial, where the company withheld its success rate.

What would change this read

The Financial Times account is the only source for the reason given, and ABB has not confirmed it. A restructured deal that keeps China operations or their data outside SoftBank's perimeter would suggest the objection is about data and not ownership. A termination notice would suggest the opposite. The Robot Report said it has asked for further comment and will publish responses.