British Chip Champion Arm Files To Go Public In US

British chip designing giant Arm has launched the process for a public stock listing in New York, in what could be the biggest US share offering in years

New York, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 22nd Aug, 2023 ):British chip designing giant Arm has launched the process for a public stock listing in New York, in what could be the biggest US share offering in years.

The firm, which is owned by Japan's SoftBank, is a world leader in designing chips that are used in smartphones across the world and aims to be a major player in artificial intelligence (AI).

The company, which is owned by Japan's SoftBank, said in documents filed on Monday it planned to list on the Nasdaq, which specialises in tech shares, after opting earlier this year against floating on the London stock exchange.

It did not specify how many shares it plans to list, so it is impossible to estimate how much the company might raise.

But details in its prospectus showed the firm is valued by SoftBank at $64 billion, more than double the amount that the Japanese firm paid for it in 2016.

That would place it close to the $68 billion market capitalisation of electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian when it listed in 2021 and not far from the $75 billion for Uber in 2019.

But it would still be far from Chinese conglomerate Alibaba, which floated in 2014 with a valuation of $231 billion. It was the biggest flotation ever at the time and now has a market cap of $1.8 trillion.

Arm dominates the design sector for processors in smartphones, with the firm's prospectus claiming around 70 percent of the world's population uses its Arm-based products.

"Semiconductor technology has become one of the world's most critical resources, as it enables all electronic devices today," the firm said in its prospectus.

"At the heart of these devices is the CPU (central processing unit) and Arm is the industry leader of CPUs."