UK chip designer Arm chooses US-only listing in blow to Rishi Sunak

theguardian.com:

The Cambridge-based chip designer Arm is to pursue a US-only listing this year, dealing a major blow to Rishi Sunak’s ambitions to make London the first choice for tech company flotations.

The company, which is owned by the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, confirmed its preferred plan of seeking a US-only main listing later this year, snubbing the UK despite heavy lobbying by successive prime ministers.

Sunak, his predecessor Boris Johnson, and an army of government and London Stock Exchange officials had held intermittent talks with SoftBank in an attempt to convince it of the merits of a dual, if not full, listing in London.

Arm has previously had a dual listing on both sides of the Atlantic, before it was acquired by the Japanese company for £24.6bn in 2016, and had been a member of the FTSE for 18 years.

Winning it back, after SoftBank decided on a flotation after the blocking of a $40bn takeover by the US firm Nvidia over competition concerns last year, would have been a huge boost for the capital’s longer-term ambitions to have more tech flotations.

Arm did offer a consolation of indicating it would look at a subsequent London listing “in due course”.

Rene Haas, the chief executive of Arm, said on Friday: “After engagement with the British government and the Financial Conduct Authority over several months, SoftBank and Arm have determined that pursuing a US-only listing of Arm in 2023 is the best path forward for the company and its stakeholders.”

Arm, which is the world’s biggest supplier of chip design elements used in products from smartphones to games consoles, pledged to keep its headquarters, operations and “material intellectual property” in the UK.

The company also said it intends to expand its presence with a new