Listen to this article 3 min
Arm Ltd.'s San Jose-based CEO of Arm Ltd. has been nominated to join SoftBank Group Corp.'s board, in a signal of the import of the chip designer's upcoming public offering to the Japanese conglomerate.
SoftBank shareholders will vote on adding Rene Haas to its nine-director board in June. He is set to replace outgoing director and Z Holdings Corp. chairperson Kentaro Kawabe.
U.K.-based Arm, which is owned by SoftBank, is expected to go public later this year in what could be the biggest initial public offering in history by a semiconductor company. The company is expected to have an initial market capitalization of between $30 billion to $70 billion.
Arm's chip designs are widely used in smartphones and other mobile devices. It reported a 28% year-over-year increase in quarterly revenue to $746 million in the period that ended in December.
The planned IPO comes about seven years after SoftBank acquired Arm for $31 billion. The Japanese company attempted to sell Arm to Nvidia Corp. in 2020 but scuttled that deal last year in the wake of objections by regulators and Arm customers.
The offering also comes as SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son’s "shock and awe" strategy of investing massive amounts of money into a select few companies has foundered. Big bets on companies including WeWork Inc. have seen massive drops in value.
Arm is preparing to head to the public markets at a time when they have been extremely resistant to new offerings. Since the beginning of last year, just four Bay Area-based companies have gone public in offerings that raised more than $50 million. In 2021, more than 100 local companies hit Wall Street.