SoftBank Group Corp. is reportedly in discussions to purchase the 25% stake in chip designer Arm Ltd. that is held by its Vision Fund 1, ahead of a highly anticipated IPO.
Reuters reported Sunday that Japan’s SoftBank
9984,
— which owns 75% of Arm — is negotiating a deal with VF1, the $100 billion investment fund it created in 2017, and noted that a deal could give VF1 investors a big boost after years of meager returns. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co. are among VF1’s largest investors.
SoftBank is planning to launch a long-awaited initial public offering for British chip designer Arm as soon as September. That will likely be the biggest IPO of the year on Wall Street, aiming to raise $8 billion to $10 billion at a valuation around $60 billion to $70 billion.
A number of large tech companies, including Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
Intel Corp.
INTC,
and Nvidia Inc.
NVDA,
are reportedly in the mix to be anchor investors in Arm’s IPO.
Last week, SoftBank reported its tech-heavy Vision Funds turned a quarterly profit for the first time in 18 months
