British Chip Designer Arm Debuts on Nasdaq in Biggest US IPO Since 2021

By
Fatima Attarwala
Fatima Attarwala
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Fatima Attarwala is a business news writer and editor with a decade of experience researching, analyzing, and commenting on issues influencing the economy.
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Published September 14, 2023
Arm US headquarters

Bloomberg / Contributor / Getty Images

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Arm started trading on the Nasdaq on Thursday under the symbol "ARM."
  • Shares opened at $56.10 per share, a 10% premium to the IPO price of $51 per share.
  • With a market value of $54.5 billion, Arm's was the biggest U.S. IPO since 2021.

British chip designer Arm began trading on the Nasdaq on Thursday under the symbol "ARM" at $56.10 per share, a 10% premium to its initial public offering (IPO) price of $51 per share, valuing the company at $54.5 billion in the biggest U.S. IPO since 2021. Shares were up about 18% at 1:15 p.m. Eastern.

The firm had been dually listed on the New York and London stock exchanges up until 2016, until Japanese conglomerate SoftBank bought it for $32 billion. The IPO offers 95.5 million American despositary shares (ADSs) on the Nasdaq, with SoftBank retaining majority ownership of Arm with 90.6% of its shares.

Founded in 1990 as Advanced RISC Machines Ltd, a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple, and VLSI Technology (now NXP Semiconductors), Arm licenses instruction sets for semiconductor chips to partners that can then use them to make chips with their own customizations.

Today, Arm is a key supplier for tech heavyweights such as Apple and Nvidia, and many of its customers, including Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOGL), Intel (INTC), Nvidia (NVDA), TSMC (TSM), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Samsung, have lined up to buy the shares as part of the offering.

"Seventy percent of the world’s population relies on Arm technology today, putting us in a unique position to advance AI across all devices. And as a public company, Arm is in a stronger position to strengthen our already talented engineering team and invest in more AI opportunities," Arm CEO Rene Haas said in a release.

In its prospectus filing, Arm said its revenue in the last fiscal year ending in March was $2.68 billion, down 1% from the previous year, while net income dropped 22% to $524 million.

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  1. AP. “Arm Holdings shares rise 10% in biggest initial public offering since late 2021.”

  2. Arm. "Arm Announces Pricing of Initial Public Offering."

  3. SoftBank Group. "Recommended Acquisition of ARM by SoftBank."

  4. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “Form F-1 REGISTRATION STATEMENT.”

  5. Arm.? “The official history of Arm.”

  6. Arm. “About Arm, Company Information, Benefits, History.”

  7. Arm. “Together, we are building the future of computing, on Arm.”

  8. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “Form F-1 REGISTRATION STATEMENT.”

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