NEW YORK: Chip designer Arm Holdings Plc secured a US$54.5 billion (RM255 billion) valuation in its US initial public offering (IPO) on Wednesday (Sept 13), seven years after its owner SoftBank Group Corp took the company private for US$32 billion.
The IPO represents a climb-down from the US$64 billion valuation at which SoftBank last month acquired the 25% stake it did not already own in the company from the US$100 billion Vision Fund it manages.
Yet even with this lower valuation, SoftBank fares better than its US$40 billion deal to sell Arm to Nvidia Corp, which it abandoned last year amid opposition from antitrust regulators.
Arm priced its IPO at US$51 per share, at the top of its indicated range, raising US$4.87 billion for SoftBank based on 95.5 million shares sold, the company said on Wednesday. Reuters first reported on Arm’s decision on the pricing.
Arm’s shares are scheduled to start trading in New York on Thursday.
Arm has already signed up many of its major clients as cornerstone investors in its IPO, including Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, Advanced Micro Devices, Intel and Samsung Electronics. – Reuters
