A viable $A_4$ 3HDM theory of quark mass matrices

It is known that a three Higgs doublet model (3HDM)symmetric under an exact $A_4$ symmetry is not compatible with nonzero quark masses and/or non-block-diagonal CKM matrix. We show that a 3HDM with softly broken $A_4$ terms in the scalar potential does allow for a fit of quark mass matrices. Moreover, the result is consistent with $m_h=125\text{GeV}$ and the $h\to WW,ZZ$ signal. We also checked numerically that, for each point that passes all the constraints, the minimum is a global minimum of the potential.