LONDON: UK-based chip designer Arm Holdings has secured a $54.5bn (£43.6bn) valuation, as it makes its highly-anticipated return to the stock market.
The shares were priced at $51 each, reaching the upper end of the range previously indicated to potential investors. This IPO stands as the largest of the year.
Trading of Arm shares is set to commence on the New York Nasdaq stock market this Thursday. A total of 95.5 million shares were sold during the offering, generating $4.87 billion in proceeds for its parent company, SoftBank Group of Japan.
Notably, prominent Arm customers such as Apple, Google, Nvidia, Alphabet, Advanced Micro Devices, Intel, and Samsung have all expressed their intent to invest in this IPO.
In March, Arm had announced its decision to forego listing its shares in the UK, which was a setback for the London stock market. Reports from January had suggested that UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had engaged in discussions with SoftBank regarding a potential UK listing. Arm ultimately determined that an exclusive listing in the United States represented the most advantageous path forward.
Arm is a prominent figure in the British technology sector, with an estimate that approximately 70% of the global population utilizes products reliant on its chips, including nearly all smartphones worldwide.
SoftBank had taken Arm private seven years prior, acquiring it in a transaction valued at $32 billion. Although SoftBank had initially agreed to sell Arm to the U.S. chip giant Nvidia, the plan was abandoned in February of the previous year due to significant regulatory challenges in the UK, US, and European Union.
