SoftBank weighs $18 billion acquisition of Allied Universal, Bloomberg News reports

JUST IN: SoftBank is weighing an $18 billion acquisition of security giant Allied Universal, according to Bloomberg.

SoftBank wants to buy an army of security guards. Eighteen billion dollars' worth.

Bloomberg reports Masayoshi Son's SoftBank is weighing an acquisition of Allied Universal, the biggest private security firm in the world. That's the company behind roughly 800,000 guards watching office lobbies, stadiums and data centres across the planet. You can see the SoftBank name right here.

And look, this is the man who bet the whole house on AI chips and robots. So why guards? Here's my read, said plainly. Son has been pitching a future where physical security goes robotic, and buying the world's largest guard company gives him the customer base to sell it to. Eighteen billion buys a lot of lobbies.

Nothing is signed, talks could still fall apart, and SoftBank isn't commenting. But when Son starts circling something this size, it's rarely idle window shopping.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.