Chip giant in £24bn sell-off
ARM Holdings investors overwhelmingly backed a £24.3billion takeover by Japan’s Softbank despite concerns over the sale of one of the UK’s leading technology companies, yesterday.
Just under 95 per cent of ARM’s shareholders voted in favour of the 1,700p-ashare cash offer from the Japanese giant, which was recommended by the board of the FTSE 100 microchip designer last month. The deal is expected to close next week.
While the 10 per cent-plus fall in the value of the pound since the Brexit vote has increased the attraction of UK assets to overseas buyers, Softbank is paying a 43 per cent premium for ARM over its share price before the offer was announced.
Chancellor Philip Hammond hailed the deal as evidence that Britain is “open for business, and open to foreign investment, while Arm, led by chief executive Simon Segars, pictured, said the offer was “compelling” for shareholders and the company had been reassured it would remain “a very significant UK business”.
But despite Softbank’s pledge to maintain the Cambridge headquarters of ARM, best known for powering Apple’s iPhone, and at least doubling its UK workforce over the next five years, critics bemoaned its loss of independence. Former City Minister Lord Myners said he feared the takeover was an example of investors selling out for a high price without considering the longerterm health of British industry. Describing ARM as a company “at the heart of the ecosystem of modern technologies”, he argued that control was now passing to a “very heavily-indebted, very unfocused business in Japan which does not have a good record of buying foreign companies and continuing to invest in them”. He added: “If ARM was an American company, a German, a French or a Japanese company, it would not be able to be sold in 60 days – there would be a question of national significance and public policy to determine whether we should sell.” His comments echoed those of Hermann Hauser, who helped launch ARM in 1990 and said when the deal was announced that “ARM’s loss of independence is a loss to the UK”.