SoftBank's Arm valued at $54.5 billion in year's biggest IPO
By Echo Wang and Anirban Sen
NEW YORK (Reuters) — Chip designer Arm Holdings Plc secured a $54.5 billion valuation in its U.S. initial public offering (IPO) on Wednesday, seven years after its owner SoftBank (TYO:9984) Group Corp took the company private for $32 billion.
The IPO represents a climb-down from the $64 billion valuation at which SoftBank last month acquired the 25% stake it did not already own in the company from the $100 billion Vision Fund it manages.
Yet even with this lower valuation, SoftBank fares better than its $40 billion deal to sell Arm to Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA), which it abandoned last year amid opposition from antitrust regulators.
Arm priced its IPO at $51 per share, at the top of its indicated range, raising $4.87 billion for SoftBank based on 95.5 million shares sold, the company said on Wednesday. Reuters first reported on Arm's decision on the pricing.
Arm's shares are scheduled to start trading in New York on Thursday.
Arm has already signed up many of its major clients as cornerstone investors in its IPO, including Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Nvidia, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) and Samsung Electronics (KS:005930).
Reuters was first to report on Tuesday that Arm received enough backing from investors to secure at least the top end of the price range between $47 and $51 per share in its initial public offering (IPO), including the possibility of the share sale being priced above range.
Arm launched its IPO marketing efforts last week, seeking to convince investors it has growth ahead of it, beyond the mobile phone market, which it dominates with a 99% share.
Weak mobile demand during a global economic slowdown has caused Arm's revenue to
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