SoftBank Group is weighing an acquisition of Allied Universal, the US security-services provider, in a deal that could value the company at about $18 billion, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Deliberations are preliminary and no final decisions have been made — including on the potential price. SoftBank declined to comment on the report, while Allied Universal did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Including Allied's roughly $12 billion of publicly traded debt, the total transaction value could land close to $30 billion, according to AI Weekly's tracking of the Bloomberg reporting — putting it among the largest services-sector deals of the year.
A deployment ground for AI robots
Allied Universal provides security staffing for businesses, venues, and major events, and has a growing presence in the data center industry, supporting both the development and operation of facilities. It is the largest security-services company in the United States.
The strategic logic, as Bloomberg's reporting frames it, is to move Masayoshi Son's AI investments beyond software and data centers into physical-world operations.
The potential acquisition would complement the SoftBank founder's increasing focus on AI: he is exploring the use of AI-powered robots across industries and looking to strengthen the infrastructure needed to support the technology.
With Allied, SoftBank would look to eventually replace some security staff with robots for certain tasks, the report said, citing one of the people — though the application of humanoid-like security workers will likely take more time.
Son has identified security as a promising deployment ground for robots from SoftBank's portfolio, with fleets of robots potentially covering event security such as concerts once the economics work.
It builds on SoftBank's broader push into robotics and automation, following last year's agreement to acquire Swiss engineering group ABB's robotics business for $5.4 billion.
Markets are not convinced
Investors took the news badly for the would-be acquirer. SoftBank's US-listed shares fell about 9.5% on October 16 as the Bloomberg story circulated. Services firms rarely trade at tech multiples, and Allied's labor-heavy base sits awkwardly against SoftBank's recent AI-infrastructure spending.
The report lands in a crowded week of SoftBank-adjacent capital stories. SoftBank completed the final phase of its planned $30 billion investment in OpenAI this month, and Paktechstan reported on October 10 that the group is seeking up to $100 billion from Gulf investors for a dedicated AI buyout fund.
What comes next
For now, nothing is decided. The deliberations are early, and the price — and whether a deal happens at all — is still open. Allied's data-center footprint gives SoftBank a second angle beyond guard labor: a company already helping to build and run the facilities that AI runs on.
Whether a labor-intensive security company becomes the physical-world beachhead for SoftBank's robot ambitions, or the market keeps reading it as a balance-sheet stretch, will depend on the terms — if a deal is struck at all.
By Hamza Faisal
