Arm unveils plan for huge stock offering
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). In documents filed on Monday, Arm said it planned to list on the Nasdaq, which specialises in tech shares, after opting earlier this year against floating on the London stock exchange. "I think it's a very good sign for the global tech market, especially with this AI gold rush. It's the start of a new tech bull market," Dan Ives, senior equity research analyst for the technology sector at Wedbush Securities, told AFP. Arm 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 US$64 billion, more than double the amount that the Japanese firm paid for it in 2016. That would place it close to the US$68 billion market capitalisation of electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian when it listed in 2021 and not far from the US$75 billion for Uber in 2019. But it would still be far from Chinese conglomerate Alibaba, which floated in 2014 with a valuation of US$231 billion. It was the biggest flotation ever at the time and now has a market cap of US$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." Analysts said SoftBank had been careful about choosing the timing of the share offering, with tech stocks having had a wild ride during 2022 involving mass layoffs and costly investments that failed to pay off. (AFP)