US tech grab a ‘disaster for UK’
UNCERTAINTY OVER GIANT BUYOUTS
THE Government claims it will look “in close detail” at the £31billion sale of one of Britain’s leading tech firms to a US giant.
Labour and union chiefs urged ministers to demand “binding conditions” on the takeover of Cambridge-based microchip firm Arm by America’s Nvidia.
It marks the second controversial sale of Arm, whose designs are used by most of the world’s smartphone makers.
Japanese conglomerate SoftBank is set to bank a £6bn profit, four years after buying Arm.
SoftBank had to make legal ly- binding promises about investment, jobs and keeping Arm’s HQ here in order to secure that deal.
Now Nvidia boss Jensen Huang has made pledges about maintaining’s Arm UK base and having an artificial intelligence “centre of excellence” in Cambridge.
But his comments failed to convince sceptics. Arm co- founder Herman Hauser called the deal “an absolute disaster” for the UK. Mike Clancy, general secretary of the Prospect union, said: “It is not too late for the Government to take a more hands-on approach to this deal and impose some binding conditions to secure a stable future for Arm that benefits the whole country.” Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary Ed Miliband also called on the Government to get “binding assurances to keep the company HQ in the UK”. The party claimed that, in 2015, Nvidia axed the 300- strong workforce at Bristol- based microchip company Icera, which it bought fours years previously.
The Prime Minister’s of f icial spokesman said of the sale: “we will be scrutinising it in close detail.” SoftBank refused to reveal how much in dividends it had earned from Arm since 2016, and stressed the majority of the sale p price was in shares.