Apple and Samsung Electronics will invest in SoftBank Group Corp’s chip designer Arm in its expected September initial public offering (IPO), Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Reuters reported in June that Arm was in talks with about 10 companies, including Apple, Samsung and Intel, to bring in one or more major investors in the offering.
Last month, Reuters and other media reported that Arm was in talks to bring in U.S. chip designer Nvidia as a lead investor in the New York listing.
According to Nikkei, Apple, Samsung, Nvidia and Intel all plan to invest in Arm as soon as it becomes available. The SoftBank-owned company will formally file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to go public later this month, the newspaper said.
Arm plans to sell a stake of “a few percent each” to the chipmaker, the newspaper said.
SoftBank declined to comment. Apple, Nvidia and Intel did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. Samsung had no immediate comment.
The long-awaited initial public offering is seen as a potential windfall for the sprawling tech conglomerate of SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son.
SoftBank has been working to take Arm public since its sale of the chip designer to Nvidia failed last year amid opposition from antitrust regulators.
The planned US listing could raise between $8 billion (about Rs 66,292) and $10 billion (about Rs 82,856), sources told Reuters in April. During Tuesday’s earnings briefing, SoftBank’s chief financial officer did not provide details on the listing date or funding targets, but said preparations were “very smooth.”
SoftBank reported a surprise loss on Tuesday, but said it was plowing back into new investments after its Vision Fund unit turned profitable for the first time in six quarters.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
Svlook
