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Owned by Japan’s Softbank Group, UK-based Arm is set to become the biggest IPO in the US since Rivian went public in 2021 at $70bn.
Cambridge-based chip designer Arm has filed for an initial public offering (IPO) in the US in what is set to be the biggest public float in the market in almost two years.
In a statement published yesterday (21 August), Arm said it has publicly filed a registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to its proposed IPO through Nasdaq.
Details on the number and price of shares have not yet been determined.
Owned by Japan’s Softbank Group, a multinational investment holding company headquartered in Tokyo, Arm is one of the world’s biggest chip designers, especially in the ARM-based chips (or CPUs) space for smartphones.
The company also has products and services across cloud computing, cybersecurity and AI.
Aside from the IPO, Arm also reported its latest quarterly earnings recently, in which sales declined 2.5pc to $675m because of a decrease in smartphone sales across the globe.
Softbank acquired Arm for $32bn in 2016. Now, the Financial Times reports that an internal transaction earlier this month between SoftBank Group and its Vision Fund – an investment vehicle that the Japanese conglomerate manages – valued Arm at $64bn.
The IPO is expected to be the biggest in scale in the US since EV automaker Rivian went public in the second half of 2021 at a whopping $70bn.
Last February, Nvidia cancelled plans to acquire Arm from Softbank after succumbing to regulatory pressure. Concerns were raised by the UK’s competition watchdog and then from the EU, before the US Federal Trade Commission said it would sue Nvidia to block the deal.
“Arm has a bright future, and we’ll continue to support them as a proud licensee for decades to come,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said at the time. “Arm is at the centre of the important dynamics in computing. Though we won’t be one company, we will partner closely with Arm.”
In April this year, competitor Intel entered a multi-year agreement with Arm to bring new designs into its foundries, combining mobile phone chips that use Arm’s technology with Intel’s foundry process to give new options to customers.
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