Arm Holdings could be put up for sale
Parent company SoftBank Group reportedly considering a range of strategies for offloading Arm
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
SoftBank Group is considering a range of strategies for offloading its stake in UK chip giantArm Holdingsas part of a wider fundraising drive.
Discussions with advisers at Goldman Sachs are still in early stages, but it is thought that SoftBank is open to exploring a number of avenues, including partial sale, full sale and public offering.
The Japanese conglomerate acquiredArmin 2016 for $32 billion, but has fallen on hard times amid poor investment performance, controversy surrounding the firm’s involvement withWeWorkand broader challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic.
It is unclear at this stage which companies might make a move for Arm, should a private sale go ahead. It is also possible SoftBank might decide to take no action whatsoever.
Arm Holdings sale
SoftBank is said to be in the process of selling off up to $41 billion in assets in a bid to appease its own anxious investors, support its crumbling $100 billion Vision Fund and buy back company shares, which are currently trading under value.
The acquisition of Arm (at the time the conglomerate’s largest purchase) was described by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son as a “paradigm shift”, but the semiconductor firm’s lukewarm performance has served to inhibit the growth of the overall Vision Fund portfolio.
The Japanese multinational also holds stakes in high-profile businesses such as Alibaba, Boston Dynamics and Uber.
Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter
Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!
Steep drops in the value of the Vision Fund also jeopardized plans to create asecond investment portfoliodedicated to artificial intelligence - a project that has been delayed due to concern among potential investors.
The potential Arm sale rears its head as others in the semiconductor industry seek to consolidate. Analog Devices this week announced a merger with Maxim Integrated Products in a deal worth circa $20 billion, forming a potential powerhouse equipped to better compete with sector leaders.
ViaWall Street Journal
Joel Khalili is the News and Features Editor at TechRadar Pro, covering cybersecurity, data privacy, cloud, AI, blockchain, internet infrastructure, 5G, data storage and computing. He’s responsible for curating our news content, as well as commissioning and producing features on the technologies that are transforming the way the world does business.
Google puts Nvidia on high alert as it showcases Trillium, its rival AI chip, while promising to bring H200 Tensor Core GPUs within days
A new form of macOS malware is being used by devious North Korean hackers
This super-cheap HP Victus 15 gaming laptop just dropped to its lowest price yet
