article with gallery

NEW YORK, Aug 8 (Reuters) – Amazon.com (AMZN.O) is in talks about joining other technology companies as a cornerstone investor in SoftBank Group Corp’s (9984.T) Arm Ltd ahead of its initial public offering (IPO), people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

Amazon’s potential involvement in the IPO, which has not previously been reported, underscores Arm’s significance in cloud computing. Amazon Web Services, the internet giant’s cloud business, makes its own processing chip called Graviton, using Arm’s design.

Arm plans to list on the Nasdaq in early September, according to one of the people. The company is seeking to raise $8 billion to $10 billion, Reuters has reported.

Arm and Amazon declined to comment.

Arm has been in talks with about 10 technology companies, including Intel (INTC.O), Alphabet (GOOGL.O) and Nvidia (NVDA.O), about an investment ahead of its IPO, Reuters has reported. These investors would not gain any board seat or control, according to the sources.

Arm is hoping that bringing cornerstone investors onboard will strengthen its ties with top customers and boost the IPO’s appeal, one of the sources said.

The IPO is expected to be a much-needed boon for SoftBank, which is battling to turn around its massive Vision Fund, after many of its bets on technology startups soured.

SoftBank has been targeting a listing for Arm since its deal to sell the chip designer to Nvidia for $40 billion collapsed last year because of objections from U.S. and European antitrust regulators.

Since then, Arm’s business has fared better than the broader chip industry thanks to its focus on data center servers and personal computers that generate higher royalty payments.

Reporting by Echo Wang and Anirban Sen in New York
Additional reporting by Jeffrey Dastin and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco
Editing by Matthew Lewis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Echo Wang is a correspondent at Reuters covering U.S. equity capital markets, and the intersection of Chinese business in the U.S, breaking news from U.S. crackdown on TikTok and Grindr, to restrictions Chinese companies face in listing in New York. She was the Reuters’ Reporter of the Year in 2020.
Contact: +9172873971

Anirban Sen is the Editor in Charge for U.S. M&A at Reuters in New York, where he leads the coverage of the biggest deals. After starting with Reuters in Bangalore in 2009, Anirban left in 2013 to work as a technology deals reporter in several leading business news outlets in India, including The Economic Times and Mint. Anirban rejoined Reuters in 2019 as Editor in Charge, Finance to lead a team of reporters, covering everything from investment banking to venture capital. Anirban holds a history degree from Jadavpur University and a post-graduate diploma in journalism from the Indian Institute of Journalism & New Media.
Contact:+1 (646) 705 9409

Go to Source