Time is right to invest in UK: SoftBank CEO

TOKYO: Japan's SoftBank agreed to buy UK chip designer ARM Holdings because it believes the time is right to invest in Britain following the vote to leave the European Union, Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son said.

"I know a lot of people are concerned about the complicated political situation in the UK and some of my friends have businesses in the UK and they're very afraid," he told a news conference in London after announcing the $32 billion deal.

"Some of them are discussing moving their headquarters out of the UK to relocate to somewhere else. I'm the opposite. I say this is the time to invest with a strong commitment and belief in the future of the UK. I'm a strong believer in the UK." Britain's shock vote to leave the 28-member bloc on June 23 has hammered sterling and unnerved investors in the world's fifth-largest economy. Meanwhile, SoftBank is set to fork out $32 billion for the British chip designer ARM Holdings, just one week after Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin's Dalian Wanda Group sealed a $1.2 billion deal to buy the UK's Odeon & UCI Cinemas Group, citing the cheaper pound. Sterling is now down 7.4% against the yuan this year, chiefly because of the 23 June vote to leave the European Union, and has fallen 10.3% against the dollar - and a massive 21% against the yen. That left Cambridge-based ARM, whose stock has risen 17% in pound terms since the referendum, still looking like a good bet. That's because it's a bet on the future, in particular the socalled internet of things. ARM isn't the world's biggest chip designer, but it has been among the nimblest, shifting into smartphones while the likes of Intel remained more dependent on computers. As smartphone sales slow, ARM is selling licenses for chip designs that can boost computing power in everyday devices ranging from "connected" beds to farm sensors. ARM also has a tiny debt load of 9.5 million pounds ($12.6 million) at the end of last year. This is SoftBank's biggest deal since the Sprint purchase was announced in 2012, and it's being done at a premium of 43% - on the face of it, a massive strain on the Japanese company's total debt of about ¥11.9 trillion ($112.8 billion) at 31 March.