Political crisis threat to Arm’s London return

THE turmoil at the top of Government could be about to derail Arm coming back to London, sources told the Daily Mail.

Lord Gerry Grimstone, the Uk’s investment minister, who had done all the heavy lifting and was co-ordinating Government efforts, resigned on Friday.

Hopes were that the Uk could entice Arm’s owner SoftBank to float the chip designer in London either through a primary or secondary listing.

Last month SoftBank chief executive Masayoshi Son told shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting that the Nasdaq was the favourite destination, but he refused to rule out London altogether.

Son said he had received ‘a strong love call’ from London, following months of intense lobbying from leading politicians and businessmen. The efforts have included meetings with former chancellor Rishi Sunak earlier this year, while in June Grimstone flew to Tokyo to meet SoftBank executives, including Son.

Boris Johnson himself was also a key player, writing a letter to SoftBank executives in May. it is understood Son will make a decision on where to list Arm this summer.

A source close to the Government said: ‘This is undoubtedly a blow in trying to bring Arm home. Gerry was heading up the talks and he was doing a lot of heavy lifting on the Government’s behalf.

‘He was flying everywhere and he was very commercially minded.’ it is now thought that the chances of winning back Arm are slim. Russ Shaw, founder of Tech London Advocates, said: ‘The timing simply could not be worse. We are at a critical point. To think of all the good work that had already been put in.’

Arm had been a member of the FTSE 100 for 18 years and winning it back would be a huge boost for the capital’s longer-term ambitions to have more tech flotations.

Analysts are estimating that Arm would float with a market value of £34bn, which would make it the largest tech company on the London Stock Exchange, more than twice the size of the current leader Ocado.

Arm was founded in 1990 and is based in cambridge. it designs the processors that run virtually every smartphone on the planet and its customers include Apple, Qualcomm and Samsung Electronics.

it employs 6,400 people globally, 3,500 of them in the Uk.