Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

According to news in the afternoon of May 12, Beijing time, people familiar with the matter said today that Arm, a chip design company owned by Softbank Corp. Group, will go to the United States for an IPO (initial public offering) as early as September this year, raising up to US $10 billion (currently about 69.5 billion yuan).

Softbank Corp. has begun testing investor interest in the IPO, and Arm will launch a share offering in New York as early as September and could raise up to $10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. Some data show that this IPO is expected to become the largest IPO in the world this year.

Last month, Arm secretly applied for a listing in the United States. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Mizuho Financial Group have been listed as IPO underwriters, according to people familiar with the matter. In the future, more banks are expected to join the ranks.

The matter is still under discussion and the final decision on the size and timing of the IPO will depend on the specific circumstances of the stock market, people familiar with the matter said. Representatives of Arm, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Mizuho and Softbank Corp. declined to comment, while a spokesman for Barclays declined to comment.

Son Masayoshi, founder of Softbank Corp., the largest IPO, has said that he hopes Arm's IPO will become the largest IPO in the history of a chip company. Bankers expect Arm to be valued at between $30 billion and $70 billion. Such a wide valuation gap suggests that valuing Arm also faces challenges at a time when stock prices in the semiconductor market are volatile.

Analysts say Arm IPO can not only support Softbank Corp. 's balance sheet, but may also provide him with more money to make new investments. Yesterday, Softbank Corp. just announced results for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2023, with a net loss of 970.14 billion yen, down from 1.7 trillion yen a year earlier. Of this total, Vision Fund, the technology investment unit, lost 4.3 trillion yen, compared with a loss of 2.55 trillion yen in the same period last year.

It emerged in March that Arm plans to adjust its business model to increase the price of its chip designs in order to attract investors, hoping to boost revenue ahead of IPO. It was also reported last month that Arm was building its own chip to demonstrate its manufacturing capabilities.

London Stock Exchange frustrated Arm, based in the UK, designs a chip architecture that is used in about 95 per cent of the world's smartphones. Arm was listed in London and New York before Softbank Corp. bought Arm for $32 billion in 2016. When NVIDIA's acquisition of Arm failed in February, Softbank Corp. announced plans to re-list Arm. Softbank Corp. CEO Masayoshi son said at the time that Arm might be listed on Nasdaq in the US, rather than in the UK.

It was reported last month that Softbank Corp. founder and CEO Masayoshi son reached a preliminary agreement with the New York Stock Exchange on Arm's listing plan, and Arm will be listed on Nasdaq as early as this fall.

Analysts say this will be a major blow to the British government and the London Stock Exchange. For its part, the UK government wants the country's largest and best technology companies to list at home in order to benefit the wider economy and support its stock market. Over the years, however, many British companies have listed in New York across the Atlantic. These companies believe that higher valuations can be achieved on Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.