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  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

UK govt refuses to give up on scoring Arm dual-listing for London

(2022/09/16)


The British government is preparing a final campaign of flattery to persuade Arm parent Softbank to opt for a dual New York and London Stock Exchange (LSE) listing when the chip designer's shares are floated later this year.

To seal the deal, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss and chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng are leading the efforts and will initiate talks with top brass at Softbank once the official period of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II ends next week.

Reg readers familiar with Truss, the one-time Secretary of State for International Trade, will perhaps be comforted by the local work she did for the [1]pork and cheese industries , hoping she can transfer those skills to tech.

[2]

A loquacious source said to be close to Truss's administration told the [3]FT that securing part of the IPO would be seen as a "big and quick win" indicating the government's seriousness about the future of the LSE.

[4]Arm sues Qualcomm over custom Nuvia CPU cores, wants designs destroyed

[5]AMD refreshes desktop CPUs with 5nm Ryzen 7000s that can reach 5.7GHz with 16 cores

[6]Too little, too late: Intel's legacy is eroding

[7]SoftBank reportedly moves London IPO out of Arm's reach

The previous negotiating force dispatched by the British government to charm Softbank was led by Lord Gerry Grimstone, but he left the government following former PM [8]Boris Johnson 's resignation. Former digital minister Chris Philp is reported to be linking up with Kwarteng to help out.

Softbank had agreed to sell Arm to Nvidia for $66 billion but the pair were unable to overcome regulatory hurdles and [9]called it off . A multitude of rivals had moaned to competition watchdogs in the EU, US, UK and China about the potential consequence to the industry if Arm was owned by Nvidia.

[10]

[11]

Arm is the Switzerland of the tech industry in that it licenses designs to all chipmakers that are willing to pay. Nvidia may have changed things to its own advantage, at least that was the concern.

After the sale collapsed, SoftBank said it would take Arm's stock public again.

[12]

SoftBank seems to be leaning toward a listing on the New York Stock Exchange, largely because businesses tend to have higher valuation when they float there – a point LSE chief exec Julia Hoggett previously dismissed.

"I want to win every single offering that I can and I also feel very strongly there is a compelling case for Arm to have a dual premium listing in the UK," she [13]said in July .

Union Unite is also keen to have a dual listing because it fears a NYSE may mean Arm's global headquarters are relocated to the US and local jobs will be lost.

[14]

"Unite Cambridge Engineering branch supports the proposals for a joint listing of Arm on the London Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ in New York," a spokesperson told us earlier in the summer.

"We would be concerned for the long term future of the company's global HQ remaining in Cambridge if Arm lists exclusively in the USA and we will always fight to defend our members jobs in Cambridge."

In the [15]three months to 30 June , Arm reported turnover of $719 million, up 6 percent on the corresponding period of 2021. This included a $453 million contribution from chip royalties, itself up 22 percent a year. Earnings before income tax, depreciation and amortization grew 31 percent to $453 million.

Reg readers may remember the [16]biting analysis Truss gave of Britain's role international trade some years ago, and may be hoping some of that bulldog spirit feeds into talks with Softbank. ®

Get our [17]Tech Resources



[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFNRUuBARM4

[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YySdmH1didhn56Vudx1RZAAAANE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[3] https://www.ft.com/content/0472054e-669c-4a46-aa6e-424bb810b227

[4] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/31/arm_sues_qualcomm/

[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/30/amd_ryzen_7000_cpu/

[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/05/intel_is_late_again/

[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/19/arm_uk_listing_jeopardy/

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/07/boris_johnson_tech_legacy/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/08/arm_cancels_sale_to_nvidia/

[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YySdmH1didhn56Vudx1RZAAAANE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YySdmH1didhn56Vudx1RZAAAANE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YySdmH1didhn56Vudx1RZAAAANE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/22/lse_ceo_arm_ipo/

[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YySdmH1didhn56Vudx1RZAAAANE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/08/arm_softbank_q1/

[16] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj49CogLemQ&ab_channel=TheNationalNews

[17] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/



NY for liquidity not valuation

Charlie Clark

largely because businesses tend to have higher valuation when they float there…

Given how much stuff is automated, fees and valuations will be similar whichever exchange is chosen. The NYSE and NASDAQ have significantly more liquidity, which makes future operations in the capital markets easier.

Tech companies or the City of London?

VoiceOfTruth

-> the government's seriousness about the future of the LSE

There it is again. It's not about tech companies. It is about the cocaine-bingeing slippery eels in the City. The City doesn't care where the money comes from, as long as they get a slice.

British government is preparing a final campaign of flattery

Howard Sway

It takes a bit more than flattery. Bribery, usually, or as they prefer to call it, "subsidies".

It's going to be very expensive to cover up the stupidity of letting it go in the first place, and trying to dress that up as a "win" will be as shameless as everything else Ms. Cheese says.

Fun Fact

Roj Blake

Most people think that Liz is short for Elizabeth, but in this case it's short for Lizard.

Re: Fun Fact

Charlie Clark

You are David Icke and I claim m £5!

Get rid of that questionnaire

xyz

I have now taken to filling in that bloody questionnaire on every page i visit. If everyone does the same then....

Happy Friday everyone.

Re: Get rid of that questionnaire

Anonymous Coward

yes I am filling that always out as well , but started from the third time to fill in random answers

Re: Get rid of that questionnaire

devin3782

I'm also doing this, messing with surveys are always good fun because they're completely useless they never ask the right questions

Re: Get rid of that questionnaire

Aleph0

I have taken to uBlock and wrote a personal filter matching the CSS of its container

. Won't post the code here because I don't want to run afoul of moderation, but targeting its height of 500 pixels is working well so far.

Re: Get rid of that questionnaire

BOFH in Training

Every new survey, I fill it out properly once and then ignore it the rest of the time.

I don't bother filling in surveys in most sites, I do try to make an exception for the reg.

Lord Gerry Grimstone

TimMaher

Was he in “Game of Thrones”? Or “Lord of the Rings” perhaps?

CHEEZE LIZ.... this is crazy...

Lordrobot

Softbank isn't selling, they are UNLOADING ARM to the US Exchanges. AS such ARM will be a Murican Company and it won't be Switzerland unless by Switzerland you mean IRS destroying the Swiss Banking system that snitched on US FAT CATs with Swiss Bank Accounts. That Europe we all know well.

The Muricans have already voiced the desire to unload Manchester and basically remove ARM from the UK. And why not... THE US SEMICONDUCTOR colossus will be centred around OHIO. ARM OF OHIO... Has a ring to it. The fact the US will now have control of ARM will see to it that ARM is weaponized. It would have done the same thing if Nvidia had owned it. Consider the Biden blockage of Nvidia A100 GPUs to CHINER...

Move along....nothing to see here...

mbiggs

TSMC -- a 100 Billion dollar (note the "B") in seven new chip foundries in Arizona

Intel -- a Billion dollar investment (exact size unknown) in new chip foundries in the US

Now if we were seeing Billion dollar INWARD investment in the UK....well I might just stop and look.

But in the meantime ---- ARM.....just noise!!

Re: Move along....nothing to see here...

James Anderson

It’s irrelevant now anyway. The smart money is moving to RISC-V (NASA is almost the definition of smart in this er.. space) nobody will ever trust ARM to be independent and impartial again.

Yet another case of British industry being destroyed by the City of London avarice.

Nothing happens.