Samsung executives are about to visit the UK: Rumored to be interested in acquiring Arm

In September 2020, Nvidia announced the purchase of Arm from SoftBank for $40 billion in cash and stock, however, following questions and objections from all parties and stricter scrutiny by relevant regulators, the two sides terminated the transaction in early February this year. SoftBank then announced that it is preparing to list Arm in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023, which will be the largest IPO in the semiconductor industry.

However, Arm’s road to listing has not been smooth. With the departure of investment minister Gerry Grimstone and digital minister Chris Philip, who led Arm’s London IPO, SoftBank shelved its original plan. It is rumored that the founder and CEO of SoftBank, Masayoshi Son, wants Arm to change the location of the IPO and go to the Nasdaq in the United States, but members of the British parliament believe that Arm should be listed in London to ensure that the interests of the country and investors are aligned, and are not subject to damage. According to DigiTimes, Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong is about to travel to the UK. However, this trip has aroused the attention of the industry, and it is rumored that Samsung intends to acquire Arm.After all, Arm is one of the hottest CPU architectures, and its applications cover important fields such as clients, supercomputers, cloud services, artificial intelligence, and robotics. A few months ago, SK Hynix said at its annual shareholder meeting that it was reviewing whether it should form a consortium with strategic partners to acquire Arm. According to industry insiders, it is possible to form a consortium for acquisition. If Samsung has plans in this regard, in addition to SK Hynix, Intel and Qualcomm are also interested in participating.