Softbank (OTC:SFTBY) has its fingers in a wide range of pies, and one of these, Arm, is about to potentially pay off big. Arm, a semiconductor designer in Great Britain, is seeking an initial public offering (IPO) that might kick off as soon as September. And it may kick off in a big way, thanks to the sheer value Arm is likely to carry with it. That’s good news for Softbank, who lost just over 4% at one point in Wednesday’s trading session.
The IPO, reports note, is worth an estimated $60 billion, which could mean as much as $10 billion total raised. A roadshow is planned for the first week of September, and pricing will swing in the week after. Earlier valuations of Arm placed the company’s value between $30 million and $70 million, so while this isn’t a high-water mark, it’s coming out near the top end of earlier figures. Arm has also spoken to a series of tech companies, from Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) to Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), about becoming investors, though the results of said talks haven’t emerged.
One of the biggest reasons Arm is in a position to command this kind of investment, noted a Quartz report, is that Arm focuses on AI chips. The artificial intelligence boom has hit companies far and wide and driven increasing investment in firms that have any connection to this technology. And since Arm also has a whole new AI chip design in mind—the Cortex-X4 core—along with a new GPU called the G720, Arm has quite a bit of new product ready to address the surging artificial intelligence market.
The news should prove positive for Softbank, and it could use it. A look at the last five days of trading for Softbank shows that it’s been in a general state of decline until today when a much larger decline kicked in. Softbank investors will likely welcome a major IPO like Arm’s, given these circumstances.
