SoftBank‘s decision to list British chip designer Arm is good news for New York, bad news for London and the best option left for the Japanese group after the collapse of its blockbuster sale to Nvidia.
Arm, whose technology underpins the global smartphone industry, is most likely to float on the Nasdaq, SoftBank’s CEO said, where it will tap into U.S. investor appetite and analyst expertise.
The move deals a blow to London where Arm traded, with a secondary listing on Nasdaq, from 1998 to 2016 before it was sold to SoftBank for $32 billion.
Jay Ritter, an IPO specialist at the University of Florida, said although tech valuations had fallen worldwide, there was still the belief that U.S. private market and public market investors understood tech companies and were willing to pay top dollar.
“The rationale for why a lot of tech companies list on Nasdaq is a perception that U.S. investors quote-unquote, understand technology, and are willing to pay a higher price for companies with compelling growth prospects,” he said.
U.S. listed semiconductor stocks have been on a “tremendous…
