BAVGOBroadcom Inc.

Broadcom builds specialised chips and, since the VMware acquisition, is also a major enterprise software vendor.

The semiconductor half covers data-centre switching, smartphone components, broadband access and storage. A separate line that grew with artificial intelligence is custom accelerators, designed for one large customer in place of general-purpose parts. Such contracts are long and predictable, but they concentrate revenue on a few buyers.

The software half was assembled by acquisition: CA, Symantec and VMware. The playbook is identical each time — buy a mature product with an entrenched customer base, move those customers to subscription and cut costs hard. It produces high margins and predictable payments, while drawing complaints from some customers about licence pricing.

The company has historically grown through mergers and carries meaningful debt, so the cost of money matters more to it than to peers without that history. At the same time Broadcom pays and regularly raises a dividend, which is unusual for the semiconductor sector and attracts a distinct class of investor.