British chip designer Arm Ltd, backed by Softbank Group Corp, is in talks with potential strategic investors including Intel Corp to anchor what is expected to be one of the largest initial public offerings (IPOs) of the year, people familiar with the matter said.
Arm has held talks with other companies about participating in the IPO, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private.
The talks are early and could still fall apart ahead of the listing, the people added.
Photo: Reuters
It is also unclear how much would be invested in Arm or what the structure would be.
Arm is looking to raise as much as US$10 billion in its listing in New York later this year, Bloomberg News previously reported.
Representatives for Intel and Arm declined to comment.
Bringing on an anchor investor in an IPO can help drum up interest and momentum, especially in a rough market for new listings. If the talks succeed, Intel would eventually be listed in Arm’s IPO prospectus ahead of the listing.
Anchor investors buying US$100 million to US$200 million worth of shares have been popular for semiconductor-related IPOs in the past few years. Growth equity firm General Atlantic invested about US$100 million in Intel-backed Mobileye Global Inc’s IPO last year, while Qualcomm Inc backed GlobalFoundries Inc’s listing in 2021.
A key part of Intel chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger’s push to return the company to the pinnacle of the semiconductor industry is a plan to open up its factories to other firms, even rivals. If he is to be successful in competing with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) in outsourced production, Intel would have to produce chips that contain Arm’s widely used technology.
The two have already announced a technical tie-up. Arm’s designs and industry-standard instruction set are used in everything from Broadcom Inc networking chips to Apple Inc processors in the iPhone and Macs to Qualcomm Inc’s ubiquitous chips for mobile phones.
By taking a position in Arm, whose technology has enabled direct competition for Intel’s processors, Gelsinger might be seeking to show his commitment to Arm and to embracing that openness. Throughout its more than 50-year history, Intel’s plants have almost exclusively worked on its own designs.
Softbank founder Masayoshi Son has said he hopes the Arm IPO can be the largest ever by a chip company.
Arm’s valuation still has not been set and the company could be valued anywhere from US$30 billion to US$70 billion, Bloomberg News previously reported.
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) market value closed above US$1 trillion for the first time in Taipei last week, with a raised sales forecast driven by robust artificial intelligence (AI) demand. TSMC saw its Taiwanese shares climb to a record high on Friday, a near 50 percent rise from an April low. That has made it the first Asian stock worth more than US$1 trillion, since PetroChina Co (中國石油天然氣) briefly reached the milestone in 2007. As investors turned calm after their aggressive buying on Friday, amid optimism over the chipmaker’s business outlook, TSMC lost 0.43 percent to close at NT$1,150
RSS