Softbank plans IPO for Arm after sale to Nvidia falls through

SoftBank's planned sale of the British semiconductor and software design company Arm to US chipmaker Nvidia has fallen through, but the Japanese technology investor immediately turned bullish on taking it public. SoftBank Group Corp said on Tuesday it plans an initial public offering of Arm after the intended sale to Nvidia failed due to regulatory problems. It said the IPO would come sometime in the fiscal year ending in March 2023. Chief Executive Masayoshi Son acknowledged he was disappointed but wasted no time in shifting to an aggressive sales pitch for Arm in its preparation to go public in the United States, likely on the Nasdaq exchange. Rather just being back, it's really going to grow explosively," Son told reporters. He said "a golden time" was coming because of Arm's "architecture", or technology for semiconductors, already widely used in mobile phones and adapted by internet giants like Amazon. Son said even bigger growth will come as the world shifts to electric vehicles because Arm products are energy-efficient. Earlier faltering results at Arm were merely because of a hefty investment in hiring engineers needed to keep such innovations going, Son said. Son said he was tapping new leadership to give Arm a fresh start, with Rene Haas, a semiconductor industry veteran, as chief executive, replacing Simon Segars. "With the uncertainty of the past several months behind us, we are emboldened by a renewed energy to move into a growth strategy and change lives around the world again," Haas said. Arm, which SoftBank acquired in 2016, is a leader in artificial intelligence, IoT, cloud, the metaverse and autonomous driving, with sales and profit growing in recent years. Its semiconductor design is widely licensed and used in virtually all smartphones, the majority of tablets and digital TVs. The company's business centres on designing chips and licensing the intellectual property to customers, rather than chip manufacturing, for which it relies on partners. Nvidia also confirmed the merger was no longer on, although it still had its 20-year licensing agreement with Arm. "Arm is at the centre of the important dynamics in computing.