ARM Going to New York Stock Exchange "Apple and Nvidia to Invest Up to 130 Billion Won"

Ransom Demand Lower Than Initially Expected

British semiconductor design specialist ARM's initial public offering (IPO) will see investors including Samsung Electronics, Apple, and Nvidia, according to major foreign media citing sources on the 1st (local time). The investment amount is expected to reach up to $100 million (approximately 132.1 billion KRW).

Sources stated, "Google's parent company Alphabet, U.S. semiconductor companies AMD, Intel, Cadence Design, and Synopsys are also included among the investors," adding, "Negotiations are currently underway, and some other potential investors are also in discussions to invest in the IPO."

ARM, a subsidiary of Japan's SoftBank, which is set to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange later this month, is estimated to have a corporate value of $50 billion to $55 billion (approximately 66.1 trillion to 72.7 trillion KRW). This valuation is lower than the initially expected market valuation of $60 billion to $70 billion.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

Sources revealed that Apple, Nvidia, and other strategic investors have agreed to invest between $25 million (approximately 3.3 billion KRW) and $100 million (approximately 13.21 billion KRW) each in this IPO. Amazon, which was initially negotiating as an anchor investor for ARM, reportedly decided not to invest.

ARM submitted its securities registration statement (S-1) for the IPO to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the 21st of last month. The stock ticker is planned to be 'ARM'.

Headquartered in Cambridge, UK, ARM holds core technologies in semiconductor design that serve as the 'brain' of IT devices such as PC central processing units (CPUs) and smartphone application processors (APs). Around 260 companies, including Amazon, Alphabet, Qualcomm, and AMD, use ARM chips.

SoftBank acquired ARM in 2016 for $32 billion. Initially, SoftBank planned to sell ARM to Nvidia for up to $40 billion in 2020, but the deal was canceled due to opposition from regulatory authorities worldwide. Instead of selling, SoftBank shifted its strategy to list ARM on the U.S. stock market to recover funds.