(Bloomberg) — SoftBank Group Corp. has put plans for a London initial public offering of chip designer Arm Ltd. on hold because of political turmoil in the UK government, the Financial Times reported, citing people briefed on talks between the UK government and the Japanese tech investor.
Investment minister Gerry Grimstone and digital minister Chris Philp resigned as Boris Johnson’s government collapsed under pressure from his own party. The two had been playing leading roles in talks with SoftBank to list the division in Britain.
Johnson had been personally lobbying SoftBank’s billionaire founder, Masayoshi Son, to at least partially list the company in the UK, the paper reported. Son had said as recently as June that he hadn’t made a final decision on where to list, and a dual listing in both Britain and the US was under consideration.
SoftBank and Arm declined to comment to the newspaper. The UK government did not immediately respond to the FT’s request for comment.
Arm, which SoftBank acquired in 2016, is based in Cambridge, England. Arm was one of the UK’s most important technology companies before the purchase and still has the majority of its operations there. An IPO that would list only in the US would be a blow to the UK government and capital markets.
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