UK Politicians want Arm Holdings to be Floated on UK Stock Market

[TheLostSwede]

Although no official word on NVIDIA's rumored failed acquisition of Arm has been announced, UK politicians are now pushing for SoftBank to float Arm Holdings on the UK stock market. This has at least to some degree to do with the fact that the UK wants to keep Arm in the UK, partially due to some claimed national security concerns that apparently weren't present five years ago when the company was sold to SoftBank.

Arm Holdings is said to be worth around £30 billion on its own and several British MP's (Members of Parliament) have stepped up to say that the Arm Holdings should return to the London stock market rather than elsewhere, such as New York, "to ensure its interests and those of its investors are aligned with our national interest" and that the company "should stay British". Time will tell what happens to Arm, but until we have official word from NVIDIA and SoftBank, we have to assume that there's still ongoing discussions between the two parties.



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[Garrus]

sell it to nvidia, the entire attempt to block it is stupid, sorry

ARM is a bit player, I think people get confused because Apple uses the same ISA, but AMD and Intel use the same ISA, it has nothing to do with how important one is versus the other

VIA uses the same ISA... nobody cares about that either

 

[zmeul]

Worst move ever. The chinese will gobble it up and goodbye ARM.

 

[TheLostSwede]

sell it to nvidia, the entire attempt to block it is stupid, sorry

ARM is a bit player, I think people get confused because Apple uses the same ISA, but AMD and Intel use the same ISA, it has nothing to do with how important one is versus the other

VIA uses the same ISA... nobody cares about that either

I don't think you understand the implications of Arm being sold to Nvidia if you really think they should be allowed to buy them.

 

[Garrus]

I don't think you understand the implications of Arm being sold to Nvidia if you really think they should be allowed to buy them.

I understand your fear, not the reality. Imagined fears are not facts. Important to realize that. We see this with mergers all the time.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I understand your fear, not the reality. Imagined fears are not facts. Important to realize that. We see this with mergers all the time.

Fear? It's not a matter of fear, it's a matter of Arm based cores being used in so many products out there and I'm not even concerned about phones or computers, but everything else.
I guess you haven't followed any of the business Nvidia does and how they treat their so called partners.
There's a reason a lot of companies have chosen to never work with Nvidia again.
I wouldn't put it past Nvidia to chance the licensing terms as soon as they could, as it's the kind of thing they would do just to earn more money. This would make Arm inaccessible to a lot of companies that are using their cores in their products today. Considering there are almost no viable alternatives for a lot of products out there, it would be a very real threat to many, very large and small companies out there.
You're entitled to your opinion of course, but to everyone else, Nvidia buying Arm is a bad thing.

 

[dj-electric]

I understand your fear, not the reality. Imagined fears are not facts. Important to realize that. We see this with mergers all the time.

I've seen bad takes here and there, but a take that saying its fine for the control-freak NVIDIA to own a hyper compettitive and innovative market such as the ARM based developer market is a really bad one.
A market to which NVIDIA's biggest competitors develop to, too, not being able to do so anymore as a result of a terrifying global monopoly over such thing.

Yeah, good time to rethink and study on why there is such a unanimous and strong voice against this supernova scale ownership.

 

[xtreemchaos]

i see no arm in it . no im all for companys not being brought out by mega companys and all the job cuts and price increases that follow.

 

[Vayra86]

Good to see the British haven't completely lost the plot, as they say over there.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Good to see the British haven't completely lost the plot, as they say over there.

Too little too late?

 

[Vayra86]

Too little too late?

Yeah... I guess they do like some self flogging before becoming wise. Its a recurring thing with those blokes (trying bloody hard to stay in character here )

But I think we can rest assured there are enough eyes on ARM right now, this won't fly anymore. The national security argument has been aired, its over.
Just look at Huawei rn.

 

[watzupken]

I understand your fear, not the reality. Imagined fears are not facts. Important to realize that. We see this with mergers all the time.

Nobody can predict what will happen if Nvidia owns ARM. For all we know, Nvidia may make good their promises. However, with how I see Nvidia behaving so far, I am not confident that Nvidia will stay true to their words. They don't have to convince me, but it seems like the failed to convince any of the regulators because there's no news of any approving it so far. And it is worth asking if Nvidia already is a licensee to produce ARM SOCs in the first place, what could they possibly want to spend so much money to acquire it? So that everyone can benefit from it like now?

 

[TheLostSwede]

Yeah... I guess they do like some self flogging before becoming wise. Its a recurring thing with those blokes (trying bloody hard to stay in character here )

But I think we can rest assured there are enough eyes on ARM right now, this won't fly anymore. The national security argument has been aired, its over.
Just look at Huawei rn.

And here I thought they tend to hire a mistress to flog them...

Arm should ideally stay independent, simply because they have too many companies that rely on being able to license their tech.
One of the complaints was apparently that they don't charge enough per license to be able to compete with x86 and Qualcomm (yes), but who says they can't up the license costs for some of their new IP releases?

 

[Fluffmeister]

Worst move ever. The chinese will gobble it up and goodbye ARM.

They already have.

ARM should stay in the UK.

AstraZeneca vaccine: Did nationalism spoil UK's 'gift to the world'?

How politics and national interests got in the way of ambitions for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

"...partially due to some claimed national security concerns that apparently weren't present five years ago when the company was sold to SoftBank."

Didn't the global pandemic, a resulting global semiconductor shortage, and all the resulting chaos completely lay bare how numerous countries rely too heavily on foreign manufacturers and foreign IP and has completely changed the way governments view semiconductor production and supply with respect to their national security? Don't get me wrong, I've never been a fan of state level power politics, but I can definitely see how the pandemic seriously altered national security concerns.

 

[TheLostSwede]

"...partially due to some claimed national security concerns that apparently weren't present five years ago when the company was sold to SoftBank."

Didn't the global pandemic, a resulting global semiconductor shortage, and all the resulting chaos completely lay bare how numerous countries rely too heavily on foreign manufacturers and foreign IP and has completely changed the way governments view semiconductor production and supply with respect to their national security? Don't get me wrong, I've never been a fan of state level power politics, but I can definitely see how the pandemic seriously altered national security concerns.

Yes, but the UK government agreed that Japanese SoftBank could buy Arm five years ago, but it seems like the current situation has changed their mind and they want it to be a UK business again. You would've thought that they were concerned about national security back then as well though, but hey, who knows what goes through the head of politicians.

 

[The Quim Reaper]

Yes, but the UK government agreed that Japanese SoftBank could buy Arm five years ago, but it seems like the current situation has changed their mind and they want it to be a UK business again. You would've thought that they were concerned about national security back then as well though, but hey, who knows what goes through the head of politicians.

You have to remember the context of WHEN SoftBank made their move. Within weeks of the Brexit referendum result, when Government was in meltdown & Philip Hammond, the man in charge of Government financial policy ( and a Grade A POS) wanted to send a clear message to the markets that the UK was still open for business, when many foreign companies were getting very nervous about what was happening and could easily cut off direct investment in the UK until things had settled down.

SoftBank only got away with buying ARM when they did because of the political situation at the time.

 

[TheLostSwede]

You have to remember the context of WHEN SoftBank made their move. Within weeks of the Brexit referendum result, when Government was in meltdown & Philip Hammond, the man in charge of Government financial policy ( and a Grade A POS) wanted to send a clear message to the markets that the UK was still open for business, when many foreign companies were getting very nervous about what was happening and could easily cut off direct investment in the UK until things had settled down.

SoftBank only got away with buying ARM when they did because of the political situation at the time.

Right, yes, I forgot about Brexit...
It's been a great success, as Taiwan has never sold as much Welsh Cheddar as it has in the past couple of years.

 

[Kanan]

This news sounds like the ARM deal with Nvidia is still dead in the water. And no I don't trust Nvidia with this, as to keep ARM neutral. They have a long history of proprietary products and software. It's very likely they would abuse ARM for their own if they can buy the company.

 

[Chrispy_]

Arm should ideally stay independent, simply because they have too many companies that rely on being able to license their tech.
One of the complaints was apparently that they don't charge enough per license to be able to compete with x86 and Qualcomm (yes), but who says they can't up the license costs for some of their new IP releases?

Agreed.

Arm need to be floated on the UK stock market with rules that the majority shareholder(s) cannot be licensees of Arm tech, to avoid conflict of interest.

If they're not publicly floated, the owner at least needs to not be a licensee, as is currently the case with Softbank.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

ARM: Help we dont want to be in control anymore, its too hard to keep afloat!
Softbank: No Worries we got you covered.
ARM to Softbank: we need more money!
Softbank: For sale! One Company with cheap licenses! Free panhandling!
Nvidia: Oh look a fish on our hook! We need more control over the market! Moar market, Moar money!
UK : Thats my fish, go back to your own pond
Nvidia: As***le!
UK: Pretty Please Softbank put ARM back in our strock market f**k everyone else.

...later...

UK: put the canoes in the pond we gotta protect ARM!

 

[Kanan]

ARM: Help we dont want to be in control anymore, its too hard to keep afloat!
Softbank: No Worries we got you covered.
ARM to Softbank: we need more money!
Softbank: For sale! One Company with cheap licenses! Free panhandling!
Nvidia: Oh look a fish on our hook! We need more control over the market! Moar market, Moar money!
UK : Thats my fish, go back to your own pond
Nvidia: As***le!
UK: Pretty Please Softbank put ARM back in our strock market f**k everyone else.

...later...

UK: put the canoes in the pond we gotta protect ARM!

You should add, that the UK didn't care at the beginning and let control over the company slide in the first place.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Wonder if the UK Gov will try and buy it back from softbank?

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Wonder if the UK Gov will try and buy it back from softbank?

They can't even afford a decent party at the minute so I doubt it.

 

[z1n0x]

European politicians are joke.