So Nvidea were looking to pay Ā£29bn for the company, which compared to the FTSE100, would place it in the top 25 companies based on mCap. Tech is something vitally missing from the FTSE100.
Is there any way there could be a UK bid to counter NVidea? Population wise there is what 67m people in the UK, so we are talking Ā£432 per person if we all bought an equal share.
If this was picked up by the Government, then with approx only 32m people in work, then we are talking Ā£864 a head of their annual tax collections.
If we asked some UK Billionaires to buy the company, then we would need far more than Richard Branson(4.2bn USD). In fact the person on top of the Times 2021 rich list only has 23bn, and most of that is probably not readily available funds. We would need the top 20 to contribute 10% of their wealth to do it with the minimum amount of people.
OR
As an alternative, could we petition the Government to request that ARM is relisted on the LSE as a direct listing? Due to the mcap of the company, it should in theory be upgraded to the FTSE100, and the largest FTSE100 ETF is worth approx 10bn. This is also a difficult play.
How can we get ARM listed back in the UK, or is it simply too big for the UK to buy back?
Whether the NVIDIA deal goes through or not I dont see how it can stay under UK control, keep in mind currently owned by Japanese Softbank, and at that price tag (now would probably go for more than NVIDIA deal) if you look at the FTSE 100 largest companies none would make sense to own this as its mainly Oil, Financials, Miners, Tobacco, Health, Consumer staples. Also none of them really have the balance sheet or size to finance this. If its not NVIDIA it will likely be another US firm that ends up owning it. Look at the raid of UK companies by US already it is just the way it works for the UK and our diminishing stance in the world especially post Brexit. If this was China or the US perhaps the govt would make a play for it, but our govt would never get this past the voters as people would be moaning about budgets etc and cant possible make majority understand what this company does/is/means for UK.
I would love to see it just listed in UK but not sure how that works, it would have to be Softbank issuing an IPO for Arm? I would think it might even bypass FTSE and just be listed US in this caseā¦ and likely NVIDIA and other big tech would try to jockey for control on the open markets (no idea of what regulation can stop them?).
Just kidding with you, but its seems a ānationalizationā as you suggest a government take control of a private company (for nationalism reasons). ā A common practice of unstable/dictatorships/comunist Latin American countries
Even the alternative of the government to request that ARM is relisted on the LSE is bit bizarre, as it will have to request a private company that owns ARM to do direct listing. Add to that, is that the ARM owner is based in far away country, with different social and economic culture than the UK or the Anglo-Saxon culture. Japan isnāt on UK sphere of influences. UK just suggesting that, will create an international relations problem with Japan, as for certainly Japanese government will step in, if UK government pressures a multinational Japanese bank/financial institution, the 2nd largest public Japanese company.
SoftBank was ranked in the 2017 Forbes Global 2000 list as the 36th largest public company in the world[10] and the second-largest publicly traded company in Japan after Toyota.
If UK wanted ARM to stay under British control, it should had stop in first place their sell to SoftBank for ānational security reasonsā, as Germany or US have done with Chinese bids on their national companies.
ARM is just another example of a successful/potential successful or high visibility British company that are bought by foreign deep pockets, larger companies and funds. See the numerous examples of UK Fintechs and other startups, or Football clubs, or real estate (mainly in big British cities).
Who pays more have the last say. And British assets are always in high demand. Just see the quantity of US companies, Arab, Russian and Asian people or sovereign related funds/companies that control British assets. (Some with some suspicion on the source of the money, e.g. Russian oligarchs).
Actually a good idea - would save the government thousands if not millions investigating anti competition complaints that loads of companies have brought up.
That is true but the cash quickly goes out the window the moment you donāt hit the numbers plus powerful hedgies waiting to pounce at the opportunity
