Arm may postpone the IPO plan until mid-2023

by ·

Nvidia and Softbank announced the termination of the previous transaction on February 8, 2022, and the former officially abandoned the acquisition of Arm. SoftBank then announced that it was preparing to list Arm in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023. This will be the largest IPO in the semiconductor industry, with analysts saying its valuation is as high as $40 billion.
ARM IPO US

After many months of hard work, Arm seems to be ready for the IPO road, but contrary to expectations, the plan does not look so smooth. With the turmoil in the British political arena, investment minister Gerry Grimstone and digital minister Chris Philip, who led Arm’s London IPO, left their posts, and Softbank shelved its original plan. It is rumored that the founder and CEO of Softbank Masayoshi Son wants Arm to change the location of its IPO to Nasdaq in the United States. However, members of the British Parliament believe that Arm should be listed in London to ensure that the interests of the country and investors are consistent and not subject to damage.

According to DigiTimes, Arm’s IPO plans have suffered yet another setback, and it is now planning to delay it from early to mid-2023, as management worries that a downturn in the economy and a plunge in technology stocks could scare off potential investors. As early as a few months ago, due to poor market conditions, Arm cut about 12% to 15% of its employees in the United States and the United Kingdom, involving nearly a thousand jobs, in order to more effectively control costs.

Arm is currently one of the hottest CPU architectures. Its applications cover important fields such as clients, supercomputers, cloud services, artificial intelligence, and robotics. There is no shortage of interested buyers. It was previously reported that Samsung intends to acquire Arm. At the same time, SK Hynix also stated at the annual general meeting that it is reviewing whether it should form a consortium with strategic partners to acquire Arm. Regardless of the form of acquisition, it needs to be approved by the regulatory agency, which is currently the most difficult problem to solve.

Tags: