British chip developer Arm achieves record UK valuation from New York listing

SoftBank boss Masayoshi Son is under pressure to get the highest price possible. Credit: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg

The owners of British chip designer Arm achieve a record floating valuation for a UK company when it is listed in New York.

Softbank, Arm's Japanese owners, expects its value to be is valued at $70bn (£55bn) when the chipmaker returns to the public stock markets, according to Bloomberg.

Sources say the British company, whose products are used in about 90 percent of the world's smartphones, could be worth $60 to $70 billion as SoftBank piques investor interest.< /p>

The investor road show is reportedly due to begin in September, with confirmed pricing information to be revealed next week. SoftBank is also aiming to raise $8 to $10 billion from the deal, which would also be a record for a listing by a UK company.

Searching for a $70 billion valuation could cause concern for the chipmaker. However, Nvidia, approached by Softbank to become an anchor investor in ARM shares.

The US chip business reportedly wanted to invest at a price well below ARM's preferred price of somewhere around $35bn (£27.4bn).

Nvidia previously offered a $40bn (£31.3bn) full buy of Arm in 2021 but was thwarted by a UK national security investigation.

Anchor investors are the big names , who invest money immediately before the public offering of shares in order to support other investors' confidence in the company's price.

1904 The decline in chip production in the west is an international controversy that even led to an unsuccessful attempt at intervention by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Earlier this year, Mr. Sunak pleaded with SoftBank to consider a dual listing of the company's shares, FTSE 100-listed in the UK and US, but Arm's owners rejected it.

SoftBank's Vision Fund, the investment arm of the Japanese conglomerate that owns Arm, suffered $32 billion in losses in the last year alone .

Its founder, Masayoshi Son, is under pressure to secure the best possible price for Arm.

In 2016, SoftBank privatized Arm for £24bn, delisting it from the London Stock Exchange.

Regardless whether the valuation of the chip developer is close to 35 billion or closer to 70 billion, any price will be a record valuation for a British company.

The largest ever in the UK was an Anglo-Swiss natural Glencore commodities, which was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2011 with a valuation of £36 billion.

In recent years, cross-border payments company Wise has reached a valuation of £11 billion, when it was listed in London in 2021.

However, tech entrepreneurs increasingly prefer US listings. Oxford carmaker Arrivals received a $13.6bn (£10.6bn) valuation when it was admitted to the Nasdaq in 2021.