Scottish Daily Mail

UK is urged to safeguard Arm HQ in takeover

- by Lucy White

MINISTerS are under pressure to intervene in the £30bn takeover of British chip-maker Arm Holdings.

The Government was already facing calls from opposition MPs to prevent the new owners of Arm, Britain’s most valuable tech company, moving its headquarte­rs abroad.

Now Tory figures are understood to be leaning on Business Secretary Alok Sharma to ensure Arm remains at its base in Cambridge, preserving thousands of British jobs.

Sources confirmed over the weekend that Arm is set to be snapped up by US rival Nvidia in a £30bn deal, just four years after it was bought by Japan’s Softbank. The deal could be announced as soon as today.

When Softbank stumped up £24bn for Arm in 2016, Theresa May’s government insisted on guarantees to keep its HQ in Britain. Sharma is now being urged to impose similar requiremen­ts on Nvidia, to prevent the UK losing its tech sector ‘crown jewel’.

It is understood a number of Tory MPs have voiced their concern to the minister and Labour MP ed Miliband, shadow business secretary, said: ‘The Government should show leadership and seek legally binding assurances from Nvidia, should it take over the company, to keep Arm headquarte­red in the UK.’

Arm, which makes vital chips used in smartphone­s, employs around 3,000 UK workers and has 6,500 staff globally.

When Softbank bought the business four years ago, ministers heralded the deal as a vote of confidence in post-Brexit Britain.

But critics said the UK was allowing foreign investors to snap up its most promising companies. Former City minister Lord Myners called the sale of Arm to Softbank a ‘tragedy’. He said last month that the UK should ‘introduce more legal and national protection around assets that we think are of significan­t importance’.

The Government can intervene in takeovers on national security grounds, and guidance cites examples of firms designing complex tech infrastruc­ture, like Arm, among those that need protection.

Science and technology union Prospect also wrote to Sharma about Arm.

In a hint that ministers were considerin­g restrictio­ns, a Government spokesman said it was monitoring developmen­ts, adding: ‘Where we feel a takeover may represent a threat to the UK, the Government will not hesitate to investigat­e, which could lead to conditions on the deal.’

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