British chip designer Arm files for blockbuster US IPO

SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son is looking for a win. The Japanese giant’s Vision Fund investment unit lost more than $30 billion last year, while an attempt to sell British chip designer Arm to Nvidia for $40 billion collapsed due to regulatory hurdles in February 2022. Now Arm, which SoftBank bought for $32 billion in 2016, is being hyped as the biggest US initial public offering of the year after it filed paperwork on Monday to go public. The listing on the Nasdaq exchange is expected to take place early next month. Reuters reports that SoftBank plans to sell about 10 per cent of Arm’s shares in the IPO and is looking to double its investment, seeking a valuation of between $60 billion and $70 billion. Arm designs chips for 99 per cent of the world’s smartphones – making this IPO a bet on whether a designer of phone chips can thrive in an AI era, and a potential shot in the proverbial for Cambridge, where Arm is based.

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