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Exclusive | Arm China CEO asserts semiconductor venture’s right to pursue IPO independent of SoftBank-owned British shareholder Arm
- Arm China chairman and chief executive Allen Wu said the company may go public in either Shanghai or Hong Kong after 2025
- British semiconductor design firm Arm, which owns 47.33 per cent of the Chinese joint venture, plans an initial public offering in the US
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Che Panin Shanghai
The defiant head of Arm China, the mainland joint venture of British semiconductor design company Arm, asserts that the Chinese firm may go public in either Shanghai or Hong Kong after 2025, weeks after the SoftBank Group Corp-owned UK tech outfit revealed its initial public offering (IPO) plan.
Allen Wu, the chairman and chief executive of Arm China, told the South China Morning Post that the firm’s Chinese shareholders, who control 51 per cent of the Shanghai-based joint venture, have the discretion to pursue an independent IPO.
“We are supportive of [British firm] Arm’s IPO,” Wu said in the interview on Thursday. “We hope that Arm would also support ours.”
SoftBank’s plan to list Arm on the Nasdaq stock market followed the collapse of US chip design firm Nvidia Corp’s US$40 billion deal to buy the British tech firm, bowing to opposition from regulators.
But Arm’s unresolved legal dispute with its Chinese unit, which contributes about 25 per cent to the British firm’s annual licensing revenue, may cast a shadow over the prospects of a smooth IPO. Regardless of that public listing, Arm chief financial officer Inder Singh told a media briefing early in February that problems involving the Chinese joint venture must be resolved.
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